Nightmare For Two

Fiction

Trigger warning: suicide, child murder.

1

February 7, 2021

Dolly Moreau didn’t expect to find herself standing in her backyard with a shovel at three a.m., but she did, and her ever-loving husband, Thad, was beside her.

He also had a shovel and was using it to pack down the dampened soil under the oak tree.

Dolly sucked in a breath, dry air sticking to the back of her throat. Her nightgown clung to her skin, accentuating the curves of her body, and her heart thumped like a jackrabbit. She was experiencing a paraplegic type of fear, and the only way to break her from it was to attach live cables to her nerves and douse them in water.

“T-T-T — ” was all she could say. It was as if her motor abilities neglected her. She tried again. “Th-ad.”

Thad didn’t answer. He was in a dream-like trance, singing a little tune to himself as he beat the dirt with his shovel. “Oh, woman, what have you done?”

Dolly tossed her shovel. “Thad!”

He paused. Then continued, singing, “My bloody Valentine took the knife and committed a terrible crime — ”

She watched in horror as her husband acted like a madman trying to cover up a crime. The thought made her stomach roil. Was he covering up a crime? Was she covering up a crime? Impossible. If they had committed murder, then she most certainly would have remembered. It was a nightmare and nothing more. She would pinch herself, and she would wake up pressed against Thad’s body, his arms wrapped around her waist and his breath warm against her neck.

So, she pinched, and she kept pinching until her skin popped and a small trickle of blood dripped from her arm.

“Shit.” She placed her lips around the wound and sucked it like a vampire. The taste of pennies filled her mouth. It wasn’t a dream. She was in the living, waking world while Thad was living in the depths of his subconscious, softly humming to himself.

Dolly nudged the tips of her fingers into his bicep, touching him like he was a weird unidentifiable insect.

“ — then she was condemned to die — ”

“Thad Moreau! Wake up!” She shoved him with the force of a sumo wrestler. He hit the ground face first, inhaling a mouthful of dirt and bugs. He coughed, hacking out the sediment collecting in his lungs, and looked up at Dolly with a matching expression of horror.

“What the hell, Doll?” he said, dirt smeared on his face. “What the hell?”

She grimaced. “What the hell is right.”

Thad pushed himself off the ground, smacking his hands against his boxers. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was about to ask you the same question,” Dolly said, wrapping her arms around herself. It felt like they were standing in a morgue.

“I don’t either, Doll. I’m just as confused as you.”

“I mean, how did we get out here? The last thing I remember is going to bed, and now I’m standing in the middle of our backyard while I watch you play whack-a-mole with the dirt,” she said, a trill of frustration bouncing off her tongue. “And that damn song you were singing…gave me the creeps.”

“Song?”

“Yeah. Something about a valentine and being condemned to die. I don’t know. It was just weird, Thad. Okay?”

The wind kicked up, and the hairs on Thad’s arms stood to attention. He looked around, trying to squeeze a thought from his head. He felt strangely alive, like he had the best sleep in the thirty-five years he’d been on earth. His body tingled with excitement, and he couldn’t figure out why. He wanted to pick the shovel up and keep going. He found himself suddenly horny and thought about taking Dolly right on the grass. They had done it many times before, but never spontaneously, not like this —

“Thad, did you hear what I said?” Dolly was growing impatient.

“The dream,” he said as if he were talking to himself.

Dolly looked at him with curious eyes. “The dream? What are you talking about?”

“Why don’t we go back inside,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

As they walked back into the house, Dolly couldn’t help but feel like she was being watched.

They sat at the kitchen table, warming themselves with cups of peppermint tea. Dolly draped a blanket over her shoulder to help thaw the ice in her bones. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was a tilt-a-whirl. It wouldn’t stop spinning. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember what she was dreaming about before waking up in the backyard.

“Do you remember what the Realtor told us before we moved in? About what happened?” Thad said, drumming his fingers against the table.

“You mean about the murders? Yeah, but I never bothered to look it up.”

“I did some research after we moved in. On Valentine’s Day in 1971, Ruthie Hartman killed three of her children with a kitchen knife. When her husband came home from work and saw what she did, he killed her the same way. He supposedly buried her right under that big oak tree in the back.”

“You mean the oak tree…” Her eyes drifted to the door along with her words.

Thad nodded. “Exactly, Doll.”

“What happened to him?”

“He killed himself.”

“What does that have to do what you were dreaming about?”

He was silent.

“Thad, what does that have to do what you were dreaming about?” she said slower this time.

He slumped back in his chair. He didn’t dare look Dolly in the eyes when speaking. “I dreamt it was us, Doll.”

Dolly’s face paled. She was quiet for a full minute. “But we don’t have kids, Thad.”

“I know,” he whispered, a bead of sweat dripping from his eyebrow. “I know.”

She placed her hand over his and squeezed. “It was just a nightmare, babe, a weird one, but just a nightmare. It meant nothing.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Then what were you doing out there?”

“Thad, I already told you, I don’t remember. Maybe some subconscious part of my brain woke up and followed you outside. The mind works in mysterious ways.”

“But there were two shovels outside. Two, Doll.”

Dolly pulled her hand away as if Thad’s skin scolded her. She stared at him with weary dark eyes. “Babe, I’m tired. Let’s go clean up and head back to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

He nodded silently, unable to shake the image of his wife’s corpse from his head.

2

February 14, 2021 Valentine’s day

They hadn’t talked about it the following morning. They hadn’t talked about it at all. Thad had been busy with work, meeting with patients and reviewing the notes from their sessions, and Dolly with her art. There was a silent agreement neither of them wanted to talk about what transpired that night, and they didn’t. All was normal in casa de Moreau.

Well, maybe not entirely normal.

Since that night, Dolly dreamed of three dead children wrapped in plastic — two boys and one girl. She could blame her morbid for that. While Thad was working, she did her own research on the Hartman case, uncovering the gruesome details about the murder-suicide.

Ruthie Hartman had been a beautiful but deeply disturbed woman. She had cut the throats of her children while they were sleeping and wrapped each one in plastic, placing them to rest in the backyard under the oak tree. When she finished, she sat on the porch, covered in blood, and waited for her husband Ray to arrive home as she knitted.

When Ray saw what Ruthie had done, he opened her throat the way she did their children, buried her, and ate his .22 Caliber handgun.

If Dolly had known this was what that Realtor lady was referring to, they would have never made an offer on the house. There were plenty of other secluded homes in the market. But for some odd reason, this house drew Dolly in like a moth to a flame.

Now it was the fiftieth anniversary of the incident, and Dolly was having nightmares of Ruthie Hartman’s decaying children.

Oh, woman, what have you done…my bloody valentine took the knife and committed a terrible crime…then she was condemned to die —

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Doll.” Thad walked into Dolly’s art room with a dozen red roses and a box of her favorite dark chocolate. She beamed when she saw him, happy to be distracted even if it was for a little while.

“Thank you, baby,” she said and kissed him. “These roses are beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

She smiled and warmed her lips against his. They had made love that night; it was long and passionate, and Dolly was thankful to be in her husband’s arms, even if it was for the last time.

3

Dolly woke strangled by a scream, her heart racing in her chest, hands shaking. She was standing alone in her backyard with a shovel, and there were three holes in the dirt — three child-sized holes. She stumbled back, tripping over her feet, and landed on the ground tailbone first.

Just a dream, Doll. Just a dream.

It didn’t feel like just a dream to her. She remembered everything. It was her that took that kitchen knife to the throats of the three children. It was her wrapping them in plastic and disposing of them like medical waste. She could practically smell the damp, coppery scent of fresh blood. She could feel it dripping down her face, adhering to her hands as she wiped the gore from the blade and moved on to the next child.

She needed to wake Thad up and tell him what she remembered — that she was Ruthie Hartman in her dream — that on some paranormally fucked up level, she and Thad had the same nightmare of a murder-suicide that took place in their home fifty years ago.

She pushed herself off the ground and looked at her hands to see dirt covering them, not blood. Her relief was almost palpable.

“Thank God,” she whispered.

“Hi, mommy,” a voice chirped sweetly behind Dolly.

Dolly froze, staring at her hands. She didn’t know what real terror felt like, not until she heard the voice of a child calling her mommy. It was sour on the tip of her tongue, bubbling up from her stomach. She was aware of nothing for a long time except for the drone of a plane flying overhead.

“Mommy, you did a bad thing,” another voice said, followed by a giggle.

“A very bad thing,” a third voice scolded. A voice that sounded like a child just learning to talk.

Dolly refused to turn around. She closed her eyes and wished for the voices to go away. She was still dreaming. It was all still a dream, and if she thought hard enough, she would wake up in bed with her husband and —

“Ruthie, oh Ruthie, what have you done? My babies, my poor babies.”

Dolly’s eyes sprang open so fast she thought her eyeballs might pop out of their sockets. It was Thad’s voice that time. A mewling sound came from his throat, and he unleashed an agonizing cry. She slowly turned to see her husband’s arms around the decaying corpses of three children.

The Hartman children.

They stared at her with dead eyes. Their skin looked was peeling away, pieces of flesh and sinew sloughing off their bones and dripping onto the ground. But their grins, three blackened holes, were the worst of it. It was as if someone took a knife and carved permanent smiles into their faces.

Dolly wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. She took a tentative step forward. “Thad, honey, wake up. It’s me. It’s Doll’s. Your wife.”

“My babies,” he whimpered, paying no mind to Dolly.

She picked up the shovel and smacked it as hard as she could against the tree. Her ears rang from the impact. “Thad, goddamnit, wake up! This isn’t real! They’re not real!”

His head jerked in her direction. His eyes were as dark as the children’s mouths. “Oh, Ruthie. Why did you do it? Why?”

“Thad, I’m not Ruthie! Wake up!” She hit the tree again. He didn’t flinch that time.

“Cut mommy, daddy! Cut mommy the way she cut us! ” The oldest of the three said as blood wept from her neck. She grinned menacingly at Dolly.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” Thad said as he pulled a kitchen knife from his pants. The children sang in harmony, “…my bloody valentine took the knife and committed a terrible crime…then she was condemned to die — ”

Dolly dropped the shovel and pushed Thad with all her strength, but he didn’t falter. Not like the last time. She tried again, but he grabbed her wrists, crushing the delicate bones until a sickening crunch echoed into the dead of night.

Her eyes flexed back, tears streaming down her face, and a guttural noise came from her throat. She could see the children frolicking around as they sang, their voices sounding like they were coming from Hell.

Thad raised the knife.

“Thad, please,” she mewled, spit dribbling from her mouth.

“ — committed a terrible crime — ”

“Thad, baby. Wake up, please.”

“ — she was condemned to die — ”

He held his grip on Dolly’s wrist. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said and kissed her forehead. “This is the only way.”

Dolly screamed, and Thad started to cut.