Confidence..



She sits back in the leather chair listening intently as Sharon Milner explains her friend Daniels puzzling behavior. Sheila Downs has been around several people who claimed to have ‘Visions’, and while she wasn’t a therapist by any means, her opinions were educated to say the least. She pours herself a drink and offers Sharon Milner one. She holds her hand up..
“No thank you.. So she? What do you think?”
“Well I wouldn’t know anything for sure until I got to talk to your buddy in person, and I sure would like to take a peek at those murals, but at a glance it sounds like that dream or those dreams of his, may be driving these pictures.. You say there are papers too?”
“Yuh Huh.”
She passes the papers to Sheila Downs.
“He doesn’t know that I have them, or that I’m even here..”
She studies the papers and gives Sharon Milner a puzzled look.
“So where is your boy now?”
“I convinced him to come to town with me for the day, I dropped him off at the Smiths barber shop. He’s getting a haircut. And then we’re going to lunch.”
“Yeah well, you keep an eye on him, the boy could have serious issues.”
She passes the papers back to Sharon Milner, who returned them to her purse.
“Thanks She.. I gotta get going.. Lunch you know.”
She leaves the home of Sheila Downs to go meet with Daniel Vickers.


The Whole Truth.



She finds him standing there on the corner, in a trance like state, Staring, his eyes completely focused on something across the street. The rain has stopped momentarily, but she can tell by the way he is breathing that something is amiss. She tries to break the cold chill that is forming at her spine.
“So.. Dan? You ready to go to lunch?’
He nods, and they both walk across the street towards the Beaumont Café. Once inside the waitress seats them next to a window and Daniel Vickers considers letting Sharon Milner in on the whole picture. He watch’s as the waitress pours their coffee, takes their orders and then leaves. he draws a deep breath and momentarily stares at Sharon Milner.
“They’re starting to change now..”
She raises her eyes to meet his.
“What Dan?”
“The Dreams I mean.. they’re changing now.. Before at first they were just about trees and shit.. Now there’s a girl in them.. And they feel more violent.. that’s all I can remember is the feeling of violence.”
“Is it the same girl as in the picture?”
He nods to the affirmative.
“Yeah.. And I have seen her a few times since then.. Only not in the dreams.. I think she’s following me.”
“Following you?? .. Danny why didn’t you tell me this??
He doesn’t answer.
“I’ve seen her at the store.. The hardware store.. And a few other Places.. Only from a distance though.”
“And it’s the same girl from the dream and the painting?”
He stares out the window, the rain returns, and begins, to run down outside of the pane like little beads of perspiration.
“Dan?”
He turns to face her.
“Does the name Jennifer Watson mean anything to you at all?”
“I don’t think so.. I didn’t recognize it when I wrote it down.”
“Could that be the girls name?.. the one from your dream and the picture that you painted?”
A silence falls over the conversation as the waitress brings them lunch.. They dine in complete silence each mull over every word of their last exchange as if searching for clues in some great mystery. He pays the check and they return to her car as the rain persists, she turns to Chevrolet towards highway 10 and slowly accelerates.. They drive on in silence for most of the way until they hit Aberdeen road.



The trees that tower above either side of Aberdeen road, do not allow even the smallest amount of sunlight to shine through even in the event that the rainfall subsides, which in this case it doesn’t. The skies grow darker and even more ominous storm cloud roll in, and Sharon Milner finds her foot pressing on the accelerator pedal even harder. Daniel stares strait ahead lost in his thoughts, and she thinks that she may as well be driving alone. It is then that she feels the steering wheel slowly start to shake as the right rear tire makes a thumping sound.
“Oh great. A flat.. perfect timing.”
The Chevrolet slowly rolls to a stop and Daniel Vickers gets out into the rain to change tires.
“Stay here.” he tells her. She rolls her eyes at him.
“Are you gonna need a hand?” She asks.
“No.. I think that I can still remember how to change a flat tire, stay out of the rain Sharon.”
She feels the rear of the vehicle slowly raise off the asphalt as the jack lifts it, and hears soft clinking sounds of lug nuts being removed as the tire is replaced. The Chevrolet slowly returns to the pavement and then she hears nothing. The rain returns. The sky gets blacker.. And from out of the front passenger side window she sees Daniel Vickers slowly walking across the grassy field towards the woods. She opens the door and steps out in the rain and looks over the top of the car and begins to yell at him. She can barely hear her own voice.
“DANIEL!!”
She begins to walk towards him slowly, curiously watching him, slowly at first then each step quickening in its pace until she is running through the rain soaked grass to catch up with him. Then through the woods, the trees becoming nothing more than blurred edges at her side as she runs through them. Until finally she sees him again, he is on his knees in a small clearing.
She slows down to almost a complete stop, her shoulders rising and falling with each gasp for breath.
“Daniel?.. What the Fu-” her words stop abruptly in her throat, there in his hands Daniel Vickers is clutching a piece of white cloth.
"It was her Sharon.. I saw her again.. standing in the trees."
He stares up at Sharon Milner blankly. She helps him to his feet, and stares back in disbelief.
“Danny.. Damn man.. What in the hell is going on with you?”
“Sharon? I need you to go with me someplace.”
She blinks and slowly nods.
“Yeah.. Yes.. Of course sweetie.. But where are we going?”
“We have to drive to a place called Cherry Creek.”
She doesn’t answer at first.
“Sharon?”
“Yes?”
‘We have to leave tonight.”

Scratch A.B.T copyright © 2007.


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