From The Wreckage - Complete (33 page)

Jules stands in the cornfield again, except it’s beautiful out. The sky is a crystal azure shade and the sun rides high; its rays hot against her bare arms. She looks down to see that she’s dressed in her Hillsdale uniform, except there’s a large ‘R’ on the chest instead of the usual ‘H’. 

“Rossview?” she mutters in confusion as she checks out her surroundings. There are florescent lights in the distance and their distinct buzzing sound teases her ears, even though the sun is shining bright. She blinks as the glare hits her face and opens them to find herself standing in the same place, only it’s dark. The lights are shining now, and moths and bugs swarm around the artificial light. A large black scoreboard is in front of her. The red numbers blink on and off like an alarm clock that’s been reset after losing power. The board confuses her and she looks around, trying to find some type of meaning to it all.

“Hello?” she calls out, and notices the visitor section of the board begins to change. The individual lines that make up the numbers start to randomly light up; forming a zero, then an eight, a two, one…each little, red glowing line — there are seven in all — fumble over every possible combination they can make. It is then that she realizes the ‘Home’ team side says her name in place of ‘Home’. Jules. There it is in block printed, white paint…
Jules
.

The ‘Visitor’ score speeds up and she turns to see a figure appear, almost as if it came up from the ground. The silhouette runs her way and it doesn’t take more than a minute for her to recognize Tanya in her Hillsdale uniform, complete with the correct letter ‘H’. Tanya runs; her arms waving at something behind her as she twists and looks over her shoulder. Rooted to her spot, Jules squints when another figure comes into view. She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees it’s only a person throwing a football, and that’s what Tanya is waving at. 

The urge to cheer and shout for her friend to catch the ball is strong, and she almost shouts encouragement until the sky shifts suddenly; turning from an inky black to a deep, blood red. The excitement rapidly turns to panic and Jules screams, but Tanya doesn’t hear her. She is too focused on catching the ball the anonymous player threw her way. Only…it isn’t a ball. Jules gasps as the ‘ball’ morphs into a black funnel cloud. The cloud elongates and grows until it catches up with Tanya. Reaching out like the hands of the devil, it plucks her flailing body up and flings it across the field with the force of a child picking up a Matchbox car and tossing it.

Jules covers her face and screams, and her stomach lurches as she begins to feel the sensation of falling. She hangs in the pitch black air for one terrifying moment, then everything speeds up again and she falls with a scream. Then nothing.

Slowly, Jules opens her eyes to find herself standing along the bank of the stream where she was with West earlier in the week. The same scoreboard blinks on the bank across from her. She shudders as she notices the ‘Visitor’ score shows ‘one’. Her eyes fill with hot tears. Shaking her head, she closes her eyes tightly and tries to force herself awake. 

“This is a dream!” she shouts; pinching her arm. 

Instead of her bed, she opens her eyes to see that she’s back in the cornfield again. Blinking rapidly, she observes the sky as it slowly bleeds from cheerful blue to blood red. It looks like someone squirted red across the top of a painting hanging on a wall, and the thick color slowly trails down; drowning out the original sky. Jules stuffs her fist over her mouth as she watches the red drip down until she sees the forms standing in the field. It’s her parents and Jason; each one spread out a good twenty feet away from her and twenty feet apart from each other. She hesitates and her worried gaze ricochets between them all as a twister begins to jump around in the background.

“No!” she shouts to her family. “Run!” 

They can’t hear her. They only stand there looking at her, their faces sad and drawn. She notices they each wear black dress clothes and she can see the unshed tears in her father’s eyes. Her mother’s face is puffy and wet with tears as well, while Jason is openly crying. They stare at her with faces turning to horror; their mouths opening and closing in silent shouts.

It takes her a moment to realize they aren’t worried about the twister behind them; they are shouting and worried for her. Jason lifts his arm to point at something behind her. She turns around to look just in time to see a silver car heading straight towards her. She cries out and clenches her eyes shut as the blaring of a horn fills her head.

A light breeze blows over her body, as if the speeding car has gone past her. A smile creeps onto her face and she opens her eyes. Thinking she’s safe, Jules turns towards her family, only to find them gone. The twister is gone as well, and in its wake the sky is now completely red, the blue no longer visible. A lump forms in her throat as terror sends her gaze to the scoreboard in front of her. Under her name she sees a ‘one’ and her heart skips a beat. The car? Her eyes skip to the other side of the board. There, glowing red under ‘Visitors’ is the number ‘4’. Her heart stops.

“No!” she screams; running forward to where her brother stood just moments before. She falls to her knees and the ground gives out beneath her feet; swallowing her legs. Petrified now, she struggles to pull herself up; crying out for her parents, her brother. Her fingers rip and tear at the soil and grass as she sinks deeper into an invisible hole. Just as her limbs tire of the fight, the ground around her falls away and releases its hold on her. Once again, she is at the stream.

Moving her aching body gingerly, she realizes that she’s lying on the rocks beside the stream; her hair gently floating on top of the shallow water. 

“No!” she whines and scrambles to her knees. When she pushes her wet hair back, the ice cold water drips across her bare arms.

“Jules?” West’s voice calls to her.

“West? Oh no,” she gasps, and moves to her feet when she spots West standing on the opposite bank of the stream. “You need to leave…now!” she orders with tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“Babe, what’s wrong?” he whispers, now standing by her side.

She stretches out her arms to hug him, only to hug air as he disappears again; now standing back in the middle of the stream with the water lapping at his legs. Jules glances at the scoreboard, sees the score blinking again and rushes into the water. She tries to reach West as the icy cold hits her and sends sharp, painful stabs up her legs. 

“West!”

He looks towards the east and his face falls as if he sees something distressing in the distance. The water rises around her legs, making it hard to wade her way to his side. Her teeth chatter as she calls his name and tries to get him to move towards her.

When she’s only a few feet away, he turns his head towards her and whispers with a shrug, “Don’t worry…you’ll always have the golden boy.” She chokes on his words as his hand stretches out, his fingers reach for hers, and Jules turns at the sound of a train barreling down on them. Only it’s not a train, it’s a tsunami of water charging downstream, heading straight for them. Her fingers barely graze his warm ones before all they feel is ice.

“West!”

As quickly as it comes, the wave is gone. The only thing she sees is the red sky and the ominous scoreboard that now reads ‘Jules’ – one, ‘Visitors’ – five.

She falls to her knees and the jagged stones of the stream bed tear into her skin and cut her shins. But she doesn’t care. Kneeling there, she allows the water to rush by; her blood mixing with the clear water as it flows away. The sky clears, turning blue once more, and somewhere a bird chirps overhead. In a daze, Jules fixes her eyes on the scoreboard that still flashes ‘Jules – 1’, ‘Visitors – 5’. 5, 5, 5! The red number blinks; mocking her pain.

She opens her mouth to scream and falls face-first into the water; letting the icy blast fill her lungs and burn her eyes. Jules takes a deep breath and swallows the bitterness of her losses with the glacial liquid. Her chest fills and her lungs protest as they lose air, yet she floats there, face-down in shallow water, screaming her pain into the stream.

Air! I need air!
her brain screams as her eyes snap open, and Jules finds herself helplessly tangled in her blankets and sheets. She gasps, flips to her back and clutches at her neck; unwinding a sheet from it.

Her fingers tremble and she takes giant gulps of air once she frees herself from the noose. She’s soaked in sweat, shivering, and numb with fear. Pushing the sheets away from her body, she curls into a ball on her side. Her eyes ache with unshed tears as she recalls the nightmare.

Something pokes in her hip and she adjusts her position; reaching for the offending object, only to find her cell phone. The small light in the left hand corner blinks purple, letting her know she has a missed message. She fell asleep waiting for West to text her back after he settled in at his brother’s house. Her finger slides over the screen to unlock the phone and taps on the picture of his face. Looking at her phone, she notices multiple texts from West. She stays in bed with her head resting on her pillow and scans through them. Jules forces her eyes to focus on the words she can barely read with the way she is laying. The last one came at almost midnight.

Spike <3: You must be asleep. Sweet dreams cheerleader. I’ll call in the morning before the game

It’s close to two in the morning, but she doesn’t hesitate for a moment. She presses the little phone icon and slides the cell under her ear without moving. Her body is still shaking from the after effects of the nightmare and her skin is still damp from the sweat.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he answers sleepily on the fourth ring.

His soft voice sends more chills up her spine because he sounds like he did in her nightmare. “
Don’t worry; you’ll always have the golden boy
.” The words crack the fissure in her heart another inch deeper and she takes a deep, shaky breath.

“Heavy breathing? Is this a dirty call?” he teases. A small tear rolls from her eye and runs a trail down her cheek and across her nose before it drips to the sheet.

“Jules? Babe, are you alright?”

There’s a muted shuffling on his end as he asks again, “What’s wrong, Jules?” he says with more bravado.

Closing her eyes, she tries to shake herself from the fist of fear her body is under. “Bad dream,” she manages in a small voice.

He groans under his breath. ”Want to tell me about it?”

“No.”

“You haven’t told me you’ve been having nightmares. Is this a first?”

His voice is filled with concern and Jules feels her mind retreating from the paralysis of the nightmare the more he speaks.

“That bad, huh?” he prods when she doesn’t reply.

“Every night.”

“Every night?” West clears his throat. “Why don’t you tell me about it? Is it the twister? Tanya?”

“I just needed to hear your voice. This one was different and…I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Babe, I’m sorry. I’m here…what can I do?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to hear you. I’m sorry I missed your messages earlier. I fell asleep.” Stretching down, she pulls the comforter from around her legs back over her body. She scoots up to her pillow, rolls onto her back and holds the phone to her ear. “Sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t do that, Jules.”

“Do what?”

“Trivialize things and apologize to me. Don’t do that. You don’t need a reason to call me, ever.”

“Will you tell me about your night? What did you men do?” 

Jules falls asleep sometime later, listening to West talk about their drive and dinner and football. He talks her to sleep. His smooth voice provides the perfect soundtrack to lull her senses.

When she awakens late Saturday morning, the first thing she does is check her messages. There are two on her phone, and the first came soon after she fell asleep.

Spike <3: Sweet dreams, gorgeous. I’ll text you in the morning

The second came around eight in the morning and floored her.

Spike <3: Morning. I’m betting you’re still asleep, or I’m hoping you are. I’ve been tossing all night thinking about you. I wish so badly I could see you this morning. I woke up with these lyrics on my mind…you have no idea how much you mean to me 

If your dreams turn to fears

And baby when your nights end in tears

No you won’t ever have to be alone

Cause I promise you…

You will find me, after the storm

Jules reads the lyrics in her mind again and again, singing them to her own tune. She recalls the guys at the bonfire asking him if he had his guitar with him and realizes she never asked him about playing. Making a mental note to hear his voice Monday, she sends him a quick reply before heading down to grab breakfast.

Jules: It’s perfect. YOU are perfect. Have fun today, I’ll watch for you on tv. Call me tonight when you get back to your brother’s <3

The day turns out to be dreary and misty, but Jules finds comfort in the overcast sky because it means she can lie in her pajamas all day, veg out and watch television. It also means the day drags by. She finishes her homework, plays with Jase, watches football and even helps her mother with dinner. But she is still restless, bored, and she misses West something fierce.