The nightmare I still wish I could forget

 

I went to University for two years and ran around with a pretty small group of five or six friends, one of which was a girl I knew in High School. We hadn’t been best friends in High School but better than mere acquaintances, so we became closer friends in college and spent every weekend palling around with our group. The Summer between those two years of University we spent a lot of time together as most of our friend group was away until classes resumed. One of the many things we did for entertainment that Summer was go to a store in town that was a combination of costume shop and party supply store where the owner had just gotten a camera set up to make old fashioned sepia tone photos like are popular in tourist traps and amusement parks. Em and I went in and after trying on all the outfits possible decided to get our photo taken in saloon girl outfits. For some reason I had a disposable camera with me that day and after getting our old-timey photo done the owner used my camera to take some photos of us with it as well. We had a great time and had lots of hysterical pictures to prove it.

The Summer came to a close and school started up again and I had the strangest dream that I told Em about. I dreamed that we were at a strip mall on the North edge of town, in line for something, and someone was stalking us. There was someone keeping to the shadows behind concrete columns watching us while we were in this line for whatever it was. Every time I tried to get Em’s attention and point out the creepy figure, they’d disappear and she didn’t believe me that there was anyone there. When we finally got up to the door of wherever we were going there was a mirror inside the door that we could see from outside and I panicked. I told Em NOT to look in the mirror, that whatever was in the mirror was NOT her reflection and it would kill her if she looked in there. She scoffed and told me I was a baby and I woke up. Needless to say, the real Em, when I told her this dream, scoffed. She didn’t call me a baby, though she did ask if I had eaten something weird before bed.

Time passed and mid-October rolls around. Em was all excited about a haunted house that was being advertised and created by the owner of the costume shop we had so much fun in over the Summer. I was less enthusiastic about guys in costumes jumping out from behind curtains to scare us and told her so. She countered that we should support the store we liked so much and I allowed as how that had been fun and I did like supporting local small business. So she convinced our group of friends to join in the haunted house tour and I was nominated to drive because I owned the biggest car.

The night of our planned outing comes and we all pile in my car and I ask Em where we are headed because she was the one with the advertisement saved out of the newspaper. She gave me the address and off we went. We pull up and it’s the strip mall on the North edge of town. I comment sarcastically that this is hardly haunted but at least there is a lot of parking and we all laugh as we get out of the car. We get in line as it becomes full dark. I note that the columns holding up the awning in front of the mall are not concrete and there is nobody stalking us, Em and I laugh about it and carry on. She notes as we go in the front door that there is no mirror.

Sure enough, there are a lot of guys in costumes jumping out from behind curtains and we are all mostly giggling as we go through. About halfway along is a long hall of curtain and as we turn the corner there is a mirror. I stop cold. It’s dim and Em runs into me. I tell her I am not going any further. She looks ahead and sees the mirror and laughs, passing me and tugging at me to follow and I resist. She tells me it’s perfectly safe and I am being a spoilsport. I agree that indeed I am and I try to go back the way we came in because I am in the grips of very real fear because the terror of that nightmare I had has come back to me in full visceral memory. I see an Exit sign is lit up and head for it, at a run, and bowl over a costumed staff member who was waiting behind a curtain for the next group of guests to wander along and be frightened by them jumping out.

I use the exit and find myself behind the strip mall, probably the only actually scary part of the evening because there are absolutely no lights in the back of the building. I pick my way around the seemingly endless building to the front parking lot and wait at the car for everyone else to actually finish the tour properly. I was just thankful I was the one with the keys and driving the car since I am sure if I hadn’t been my friends would likely have left me behind.

The rest of the group comes out and are all laughing and obviously nobody was killed by a random trick mirror in the fake haunted house. Em had told everyone about my dream and so they all knew by then why I had taken off like a bat out of hell. There was a lot of mostly good-natured teasing but later one of our group took me aside and asked me if I was ok, if I had ever had a dream come true before, and if I needed anything. I told her no, there was no cure for utter mortification at being scared by a nightmare and that I hadn’t ever had a dream be real, so far anyway.

And that is the story of the first time I had a nightmare almost come true.