At three in the morning I’m awoken by a knock on the door. Then the doorbell rings. First once, then twice, then over and over again.
I stumble out of bed and peer down from the second story balcony that overlooks the entry foyer. Through the glass panel next to the door I see the outline of a small figure on the front stoop.
“Who’s there?” I ask.
My mom’s face, framed on either side by her tiny hands, suddenly presses against the glass and peers in.
“Sarah? Is that you?”
“Mom?” I ask, astonished. I race down the stairs and fling open the door. “Mom?” I repeat, because I can’t believe my eyes. The hospice called three days ago to say she had passed.
“Why did you leave me?”
“I didn’t leave you,” I say as I usher her to a chair in the kitchen, my mind whirling. I start asking her all the questions I’m thinking: “How did you get here? Where have you been the past three days? Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
I have to call someone, but who? Then I remember the sticker on the back of the phone. The hospice gave it to us when we’d first signed my mom on with them. Back when we thought she would die in our house, before she had the stroke and became too much for me to care for alone.
Speaking of us, where is my husband? How could he sleep through all of this commotion?
I call the afterhours emergency number.
“New Light Hospice, how may we help you?”
“Yeah, um, I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but I received a call three days ago that my mom had died. She was at your downtown location.”
“Yes,” the operator said politely.
“Yeah, well, um, she’s here right now. I don’t know where she’s been the past three days, but she’s not dead.”
“Can I get your mother’s name?”
“Sure,it’s—”
“Sarah!” my mother says, clutching at her chest and falling from the chair to the floor.
“Mom!” I scream, forgetting the operator on the other end for a moment as I rush to my mom’s side.
“Ma’am?”
“I need help! My mom’s had another stroke or heart attack or something!”
I’m sobbing, unable to revive my mom, being forced to relive losing her all over again.
I didn’t go see her her last night in the hospice. They’d called to tell me she had a few hours at best, but I couldn’t bring myself to be there when it happened. The next time they called was to say she was gone. As in dead, not as in missing. Or at least that’s what I had presumed at the time. Now I’m not so sure.
“Sarah? Sarah?”
The operator’s voice is changing. It’s getting deeper, transforming from a woman’s to a man’s. To my husband’s.
“Sarah, wake up. You’re having the nightmare again.”
I open my eyes and find my husband staring down at me. He wipes away the tears that have fallen in real life.
I clutch him tight, realizing it’s just my recurring nightmare. The one I’ve had almost every night for the past six months. He holds me as I drift back off to sleep again.
But then there’s a knock on the door.
I know who will be there.
My mother. My ghost. My nightmare.
—
©2009 C. Le Mroch
C. Le Mroch is Courtney Mroch’s horror and fantasy pen name. In addition to writing, she hunts ghosts and is creating a website for restless spirits called HauntJaunts.net, set to launch in August/September 2009.
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Tags: C Le Mroch
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:05 am
That’s a creepy tale, Courtney. Well done!
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:59 am
I don’t know about you, but I won’t be answering that door. I dug this one.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
[...] very excited to share that Flashes in the Dark published my flash “My Nightmare” [...]