Nightmare

Pure blackness. Pure silence, save for a slight ringing in his ears, steadily growing larger and larger. Was he spinning around? Everywhere he looked it was an even level of black, black, black, black…

He could not move. He could lift his legs, he could run, but he could not move. It was as if he was stuck in place, as if on an invisible, taunting treadmill. That ringing, that ringing, that ringing…

The ringing started to change. It continued to get louder, but now it also became deeper, like a low hum. From a ringing to a humming. That humming, that humming, that humming…

Then, suddenly, the humming started to waver. It remained loud and consistent, but there was now a rhythmic pounding. A loud thumping. From a ringing, to a humming, to a thumping. That thumping, that thumping, that thumping…

Then, suddenly, out of the darkness, a familiar object appeared, clear as day amidst all the night surrounding him. The small, blue craft was unmistakable: His late wife's helicopter, the blades thumping and thumping and thumping.

The helicopter drew closer and closer, so close that he could now see the most painful thing he could ever see in his life: His beloved wife, Carmelita Montoya Fox, standing in the helicopter. She was standing by the open side door, looking straight into his eyes. There was no emotion at all in her brown eyes. It was a distant, forlorn look, her mouth a perfect flat line. No smile, no frown, no anger, no sadness. She simply stood there, staring at him as he stared back at her. And that thumping, that thumping, that thumping…

Suddenly, before he knew it, there was a rush. He felt the sensation of wind blowing past him in less than two seconds, his fur and clothing following it briefly as it rushed past. It was a dark shape, impossibly large, but just a large dark blot, as if it was a portion of the environment severed from the walls, floor, and ceiling of black all around him. It rushed past him and towards his wife. Her head cracked over several degrees, just barely enough to look at the black shape as it rushed her.

She was swept right off her feet, and slammed back into the opposite wall of the chopper with a loud bang and a hard grunt. She slowly slid down to the metal floor, where her head slumped over. Her dull look was gone, replaced with a look of shock, and the unmistakable presence of pain. Even with her head slumped, her eyes managed to look up, look up at her attacker.

He watched, in pure anger and hatred. He suddenly found his urge to rush the attacker build up and finally come out. He charged, sprinting with all of his might. He was moving faster and harder than he ever had in his whole life, but he could not move. As he drew closer, the helicopter drew farther and farther away. Even as he slowed down, so did the helicopter slow down as it moved away from him like two magnets of the same charge. And all the while, there was that thumping, that thumping, that thumping…

A small portion of the black figure materialized into an appendage, stretching out from the main shape, plain, dull, and featureless. Then, suddenly, it appeared. It did not emit from the appendage, nor did it slowly fade into existence. It was just there. The knife. The unmistakable, horrible, unforgettable steak knife, with its blade clean and gleaming. As the knife appeared, the thumping changed. It was no longer the dull, constant rhythm of one thump following the other in perfect succession. Now, it was two thumps, much closer together, followed by a pause, then two more thumps. Succeeding pairs of thumps. Thump-thump…thump-thump…thump-thump…

He continued running, but could only watch in pure horror as the appendage swung down, blade at the tip. He could hear the horrible sound of the blade punching through flesh; a juicy, meaty sound as it pierced the meat, between the bones, and into the heart. Suddenly, the thump-thump lurched, halfway between the second thump. After a brief pause, it started moving at a rapid pace, almost like the consistent thumping that it was a moment ago.

Thump-thumpthump-thumpthump-thumpthump-thump…

Then, as the appendage slowly moved away and left the knife stuck in her chest, blood leaking down out of the wound, the thump-thump started to decrease. It was back to it's pattern of pairs, but was moving much slower.

Thump-thump…thump-thump… …thump-thump… … …

Then the thumping started to grow slower between thumps.

Thump…thump… … …thump …thump… … … …thump…thump… … … … …

The appendage retracted into the figure, and it remained there, hovering in front of his dying wife. His eyes moved back and forth between her and the figure.

Thump…thump… … … … … …thump … …thump… … … … … … …

…

Then it was silence. The ringing, turned into the humming, turned into the thumping, turned into the thump-thumping, had now turned to silence. There was no movement from Carmelita. She lied there, motionless, blood trickling down. Tears welled up in his eyes, and his anger was boiling wildly.

Fists clenched, he turned to face the figure. It hovered there, motionless, as motionless as the dead Carmelita. He couldn't tell which end was the front and the back; it was just one big cloud of dark.

Then, just as the knife appeared in its appendage, two piercing, beady, sharp yellow eyes appeared on what he figured was its head. The small black pupils narrowed on him, and the tops of the eyes slanted down as if invisible eyebrows were furrowing angrily over them.

Suddenly, it rushed at him. Before he could even react, the helicopter completely vanished from view as he was enveloped by the black shape. The only thing he could see were those horrible yellow eyes, locked on him…

"Sir?"

Sly's eyes shot open, and he jolted briefly in his seat, clenching the armrests as tightly as he could. His eyes darted around like a housefly escaping a flyswatter. Eventually, they landed on the window to his left, where there was a long, endless flat terrain of earth below, with the houses and the green fields in their repeating square patterns. Every now and then, a cloud would come between the jet and the ground. Just outside his window was the massive wing of the plane, with the low hum of the engines still audible.

"Sir, are you alright?"

Sly's eyes darted to the opposite direction, where the stewardess stood next to him with a slight look of concern.

"Um…yeah. I-I'm fine. I'm fine. Thank you."

With one last look at Sly, she turned on her heels and moved on.

Sly remained in his seat, clenching the armrests of his chair and looking straight ahead. He was aware of a pair of eyes on him, and looked to his right, where an elderly woman across the aisle from him was giving him a strange look. He didn't know what to do, so he simply looked forward again until he could sense that she was no longer staring at him, and had returned to reading her magazine.

Slowly, Sly allowed one hand to stroke the itchy, uncomfortable beard he was wearing, pretending to stroke it casually when he was actually adjusting it subtly. If there was one thing he hated, it was the stupid and ridiculous disguises that he had to wear whenever he traveled. It was the one thing he was glad to be rid of when he left behind his life of crime.

He heard a slight rustling behind him and to the right. After a moment, the nasally voice whispered to him through the crevice between Sly's seat and the one empty seat to his right, "Sly, what was that all about? I could see your chair shake from back here."

Sly was still recovering from his nightmare. He shook his head once more, careful not to cause his beard to slip, and also brushed his fingers over his forehead to make sure his fake unibrow was also still in place. After a moment, he was able to respond.

"It was…nothing." He replied, still using his fake gruff voice even as he whispered to one of the only two people on the plane who knew his true identity.

Not completely convinced, Bentley leaned back and gave a brief glance to Penelope at his side. She shook her head and returned to the novel she had been reading for some time now. Bentley turned to look out the window next to him, his thoughts as distant and unreachable as the clouds below.

…

About eight rows behind and across the aisle, the monkey lowered his newspaper slightly and glanced over it at the raccoon. He was now leaning forward in his seat, burying his face into his hands. He could barely see the mouse sitting in the seat directly behind him, watching him from behind.

He lifted the magazine and turned his head sideways to speak to the mouse in the seat next to him.

"Looks like he had a pretty good jolt over there."

"Surprised his beard didn't come off." Whitman commented.

"So what do we do when they meet up with the hippo?"

"Well first of all, we have to catch solid evidence of them committing some sort of crime. So simply having a meeting with the hippo won't be good enough."

"Are you nuts? The four of them together in the same room. It's perfect evidence. It's all we need."

"Trust me, Glen. These days, with shows like CSI and that crap, everyone expects perfect, solid, undisputable evidence. The smoking gun. Until then, everything's hypothetical. Trust me; I've been on the force longer than you. I know the tricks of the trade, as well as its demands."

"Fine." Whitman muttered.

Braskel then went back to actually reading the newspaper. Whitman turned and looked out the window.

To be continued…