walnuts, who
found him splashing about in his own blood and shouting quietly through the jagged cut in his throat
no!
yes, and to make matters worse, he had a butcher knife in his hand and stabbed her before she knew what was happening so that
the police found her lying beside her husband with the knife plunged into her temple and so they ruled it a murder-suicide.
well, isn’t that just like them to see only that
the dinner party ended abruptly, but the others were saying that they had seen it coming anyway, and the dear young hostess was wringing her hands and saying something about a dream, a dream, that had gone from bad to worse
It was the shrieking, strangling sound that brought Mrs. Presbury to the bathroom under the stairs. When she knocked on the door, Arnold had considerately opened it and then plunged the knife into the sallow temple skin of his wife, who screamed and screamed and screamed, finally dropping down alongside her husband in a bloody heap, half in the bathroom door and half in the polished hallway.
And so Sarah and the others found them, with Mr. Presbury twitching but silent, hugging the porcelain commode, and Mrs. Presbury gasping for her last breath and wriggling her horizontal death dance like an eel thrown into the bottom of a boat.
The dinner party had broken up quickly after the police arrived, and Sarah gave many apologies for this ugly turn in the evening’s activities, as though she had been somehow responsible. The dream had now been thrown into a dark, film noir mode, and Sarah could not seem to it shut off.
“I just want to wake up, I just want to wake up,” she kept saying to police. And the big, knobby-fingered detective was doing his best to record this remarkable statement when Sarah looked down and saw herself fading, from the bottoms of her soft gliding shoes, up the velvety torso of her evening dress, and, finally, to the top of her head.
She thought the policeman looked funny, as he faded from view, and she even gave a short, hysterical laugh at his bewildered expression as he watched her disappear, like a wisp of fog on an evening breeze.
The nor’easter was rattling Sarah’s bedroom window panes and she could hear hard grains of snow sweeping against the glass with every gust. She had not opened her eyes yet, but she was slowly accepting sensory input from the here and now, waiting in her mind to see if it could be trusted yet.
The temperature in the room, already low when Sarah went to bed, was now in the 50s despite the best efforts of the furnace. She opened her eyes and sat up in bed, hugging the covers, and exhaled a thin ghost of a breath, barely visible against the pale daylight creeping into the room. The vapor floated quietly in the dimness of the early morning gloom and dissipated slowly, like the remnants of Sarah’s dream.
The bedroom looked exactly the way it had when she slipped between the covers the night before: yellow walls accented with tastefully applied strokes of white to lighten it up on days like this. It seemed to Sarah that the storm outside might last for several more hours at the very least and a chill racked her thin body from head to toe as she huddled in the bed.
She wondered at the incredible feeling of reality left by the dream. She was not prone to nightmares, and rarely had any dreams at all. But this one, with its vivid detail and continuity, from the sequined black gown to the blood-smeared bathroom and everything in between, had seemed so real.
On an impulse, Sarah drew back the covers and bounded lightly out of bed. She slipped into a clean sweater and jeans, followed by her thickest socks and Timberlands. Then she went in search of her jacket, which had been flung carelessly to one side of the room the night before, after dinner. The bedroom door had been left open to the hallway, and Sarah peeked around the corner to make sure everything was normal, and found that it was.
The house was just as it had been during
found him splashing about in his own blood and shouting quietly through the jagged cut in his throat
no!
yes, and to make matters worse, he had a butcher knife in his hand and stabbed her before she knew what was happening so that
the police found her lying beside her husband with the knife plunged into her temple and so they ruled it a murder-suicide.
well, isn’t that just like them to see only that
the dinner party ended abruptly, but the others were saying that they had seen it coming anyway, and the dear young hostess was wringing her hands and saying something about a dream, a dream, that had gone from bad to worse
It was the shrieking, strangling sound that brought Mrs. Presbury to the bathroom under the stairs. When she knocked on the door, Arnold had considerately opened it and then plunged the knife into the sallow temple skin of his wife, who screamed and screamed and screamed, finally dropping down alongside her husband in a bloody heap, half in the bathroom door and half in the polished hallway.
And so Sarah and the others found them, with Mr. Presbury twitching but silent, hugging the porcelain commode, and Mrs. Presbury gasping for her last breath and wriggling her horizontal death dance like an eel thrown into the bottom of a boat.
The dinner party had broken up quickly after the police arrived, and Sarah gave many apologies for this ugly turn in the evening’s activities, as though she had been somehow responsible. The dream had now been thrown into a dark, film noir mode, and Sarah could not seem to it shut off.
“I just want to wake up, I just want to wake up,” she kept saying to police. And the big, knobby-fingered detective was doing his best to record this remarkable statement when Sarah looked down and saw herself fading, from the bottoms of her soft gliding shoes, up the velvety torso of her evening dress, and, finally, to the top of her head.
She thought the policeman looked funny, as he faded from view, and she even gave a short, hysterical laugh at his bewildered expression as he watched her disappear, like a wisp of fog on an evening breeze.
The nor’easter was rattling Sarah’s bedroom window panes and she could hear hard grains of snow sweeping against the glass with every gust. She had not opened her eyes yet, but she was slowly accepting sensory input from the here and now, waiting in her mind to see if it could be trusted yet.
The temperature in the room, already low when Sarah went to bed, was now in the 50s despite the best efforts of the furnace. She opened her eyes and sat up in bed, hugging the covers, and exhaled a thin ghost of a breath, barely visible against the pale daylight creeping into the room. The vapor floated quietly in the dimness of the early morning gloom and dissipated slowly, like the remnants of Sarah’s dream.
The bedroom looked exactly the way it had when she slipped between the covers the night before: yellow walls accented with tastefully applied strokes of white to lighten it up on days like this. It seemed to Sarah that the storm outside might last for several more hours at the very least and a chill racked her thin body from head to toe as she huddled in the bed.
She wondered at the incredible feeling of reality left by the dream. She was not prone to nightmares, and rarely had any dreams at all. But this one, with its vivid detail and continuity, from the sequined black gown to the blood-smeared bathroom and everything in between, had seemed so real.
On an impulse, Sarah drew back the covers and bounded lightly out of bed. She slipped into a clean sweater and jeans, followed by her thickest socks and Timberlands. Then she went in search of her jacket, which had been flung carelessly to one side of the room the night before, after dinner. The bedroom door had been left open to the hallway, and Sarah peeked around the corner to make sure everything was normal, and found that it was.
The house was just as it had been during
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