I dreamt last night about being holed up with a psychopathic killer in the woods. There was a cute little cat there with us, and I spent a good amount of time feeding it the sandwiches this psycho guy was giving me. He was completely normal and actually kinda funny, and it wasn't until the cat got sick and the guy insisted I "finish the meal - gotta finish the meal" that I started to get the picture.
I tried to reason with the guy, but really I could see that I had flipped his nutcase switch and it was time to get the hell out of there and take my chances in the woods. I'm no fool, and I remembered all the psycho-in-the-woods movies, so I figured I'd run a little ways and then hide and watch him chase me. I ran up to the second story of the house we were in, and dove through the window to roll down the roof and land on a pile of firewood we'd stacked the day before.
I thought that would give me a good start since psycho would have to go back downstairs and around the house to get to me, but he was just as die hard as I was and he just went right through that window and rolled down after me. But as he landed, he dropped one of the two knives he had. He'd always had the cooks knife and the paring knife - useful for preparing those sandwiches, I guess. He had dropped the paring knife and grabbing it I ran off into the woods.
In the woods there was a bizarre chase from and to shadows. It was viewed from the third person, so I could see myself, and it seemed like a weird kind of waltz of stepping into a shadow, then stepping out. Sometimes the fallen autumn leaves would crunch underfoot - sometimes not. Sometimes you could hear the hard breathing of one of us - sometimes not. It was then that I realized he was mimicing me.
He knew exactly where I was, and came at me from just a few yards away. I blocked his stab and began to talk to him again. I thought maybe I could convince him that I wanted to go back to the house and eat the sandwich. I knew that I didn't stand a chance in a knife fight with this guy.
Amazingly, he bought it. He seemed surprised that I would want to go back - but hell "that's all I really wanted in the first place, wadn't it? A little snack?" and he mock-bowed and pointed his arm back towards the house. The second I saw his arm in the moonlight, I slashed his wrist as quickly and as hard as I could. I must have gotten him pretty good, because I felt a light slap on my foot of what must of been his blood.
Before he even had a chance to scream, I was running again. I didn't bother looking back because I could hear him coming right behind me. And the rhythm started there. The crunch of our feet, and the lub-dub of our hearts de-synching over time, punctuated by desparate cries of fear. I was waiting for him to bleed out. He was waiting for me to stumble. And he was losing.
I felt that I was running from death itself, coming and going. I heard his pace slowing and I could feel how cold he felt, even though my skin was radiating a pulsing warmth. I stopped and turned to look at him. He was an alabaster statue of a twisted reflection of me, splashed with blood from the chest down. His knife was gone and his fingers were curled and he rasped a feeble cry for help as he fell.
I laid down nearby and watched him. Psychos always come back after they die, and I was going to keep my eye on this one. I laid down in the bed of leaves and felt the heat of my skin against the cold of the night and the warmth of his draining blood against the cold of his death. I began to drift asleep.
I was in bed, listening to a delivery truck's door clatter to a close outside my house. I was guessing it was still morning and I hadn't overslept. It was cold, but I was still warm, lying there next to my fallen killer on the grass. I couldn't move. I was too tired and comfortable. I could only listen to the sounds of a bright Berkeley morning outside my window mingle with the rustle of trees in the dark woods where I watched death die.
Posted by Matt at August 31, 2003 11:27 AM