My sleep is a maze of deadly turns. Blood is slithering on the floor, snakes of crimson, chasing me as I stumble from room to room, and that ever-present smell of cinnamon and sour sweat. Bars block my way, and then fists, and then I wake up with a scream dying in my mouth, tangled up in my blanket on the sofa.
What the fuck.
Sweat is drying on my face and chest, the T-shirt stuck to my skin. My stomach is twisted up in a knot, nausea rising in my throat.
At least I didn’t sleepwalk or anything else weird this time.
Grinding my teeth, I roll on my side and try to gauge from the light seeping through the curtains if it’s morning yet or not. Can’t really tell.
Too tired to move. Thirsty. Cold. Feeling like days-old roadkill.
That’s what I get for watching flesh-eating zombies on TV. Cassie and her bright ideas.
Me and my even brighter ones, like letting her in. Sitting beside her. Allowing myself to hope for… not even sure what. Something. With her. Some more of that warmth that fills me when she’s around.
Hell, Shane. She’s right. What’s wrong with you? It’s as if every fucking defense I have is crashing down, one after the other, leaving me exposed.
Work starts later today, plenty of time to catch the bus to the construction site, and I stay curled up on the sofa, lost in between sleep and wake, too drained to get up and refusing to go back to sleep and the nightmares waiting there.
Eventually, though, I roll off the sofa and make some coffee. Black, bitter, with heaps of sugar, and still my brain is sluggish, my eyelids heavy.
Despair haunts the corners of my consciousness. Can’t do this every night—fighting monsters and memories. Returning to the pit where I thought my life would end.
Snap out of it, Shane. You’re a grown man. Men don’t go to pieces for no reason. What happened in the past stays in the past, and you move on. You fucking did it before, you do it again. Same thing.
Only it’s not. When I came out of prison, I shoved everything down and pretended nothing had happened, that I could take it in stride. But the memories are like living things, scratching the surface, trying to get free. Driving me crazy.
I slam my mug on the table, cracking it. Hot coffee spills down, on my feet, and I barely feel it.
I’m not fucking crazy. I won’t break. Not sure right now why it’s important, why it matters, can’t think of a reason… but I won’t let the nightmares have me.
You can’t have me, motherfuckers. I survived that prison, and I won’t be taken down by dreams.
***
Despite the resolutions made in my kitchen at the crack of dawn, after hauling pipes and crates and dismantling scaffolding for hours on end in the freezing wind and falling snow, I’m ready to throw in the towel, curl up and not get up again.
My heavy work boots drag on the frozen ground. My back and arm muscles are screaming as I carry yet another pipe to a pile at one end of the construction site, the helmet falling over my eyes. Melting snow is running down my neck, and my hair, caught at the back of my neck, is wet and heavy.
Dropping the pipe on the pile, I bend over and brace my hands on my knees, panting. Black is eating at the edges of my vision. I need a break, but that’s not yet in the cards. I shouldn’t be so damn exhausted so early, but after the night I had with the nightmares from hell, it’s a wonder I’m still on my damn feet.
“Tucker. Over here!” That’s Peter Josh, the site superintendent, waving an arm to catch my attention. “Come help Ollie take down this scaffold.”
Straightening, I slog toward them, shaking my head every few steps like a dog, trying to clear my vision. It’s kinda blurry. Like my mind. Like I’m not one hundred percent awake.
Shit.
Just gotta steer clear of machinery and not drop anything on anyone. Just one more hour, then I’m off, back… home. Though it doesn’t feel like home. Nothing
has, since my mom died. Feels like yesterday, and yet it feels like a thousand years have passed. I can almost see it in my mind’s eye—glaciers rising and melting, the ocean retreating, trees growing from saplings to behemoths, reaching for the sky—
“Up here, Tucker.” Ollie waves from his perch fifteen feet above ground, on the scaffold he’s dismantling, and I think I see more guys up there. “Hurry up. I wanna finish with this and go home to my kids.”
Home. That word again.
Something is nagging at me, and I glance up again, try to see the guys huddled with Ollie on top of the scaffold. My stomach cramps.
What the fuck? Just because I don’t know them, doesn’t mean they’re danger.