Destiny Dreams And Demons - Chapter 12 Josh 12

It was a long day at work, a typical Monday; it seemed to drag on as the time passed slowly. Mitchell and I sat down together at lunch and spent the entire hour talking about our wives. Their crazy dreams and alter egos had us both believing that in some way they might actually be intertwined somehow. It had only been three days since we all had dinner at mine and Abby’s house, but Veda had already had another dream. Mitchell wanted to confide in someone that wouldn’t think that his wife was crazy so that only left me. Who else could he talk to, about her dreams, that wouldn’t think that she was crazy? If I thought Veda was crazy, I would have to think the same about my Abby. Especially, since my own wife had dreams of another woman.

Finally, the clock read six o’clock and it was time to go home. I clocked out and walked out to my truck, waving at Mitchell as he did the same. “See you tomorrow, Mitch.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow, Josh.” I drove home in a hurry trying to just get to my recliner and relax. Within a half hour, I pulled into my driveway and shut off the truck. I walked into the house and opened my mouth to announce my arrival when I heard rustling around in the kitchen. I looked around and realized that nothing had been done for the day. That was very unlikely for Abby; she was a bit of a neat freak and liked everything to be spotless. This realization let me know that something was wrong. I started walking down the hall toward the kitchen. As I neared the door I could hear papers sliding across the desk and inaudible words.

I peered into the kitchen and saw my normally organized, calm wife scrambling around, not wearing anything. Her hair was still a mess of loose frizz around her now paper white face and a shot of horror washed over me.

She looked over at me startled, and I thought I was looking at a madwoman. Her eyes were darkly ringed underneath and they were faded and wide. “Josh?” she asked in a hoarse whisper as she narrowed her eyes. “Josh, is that you?”

It took me a moment to compose myself enough to answer her, “Yes it is, Baby. Are you okay?”

“Okay?!” she exclaimed frantically. “Okay? Do I look okay to you? I feel like I am losing my damned mind! And you ask me if I’m okay, what do you think?” She stood in the middle of the kitchen nearly screaming at me with a neurotic tone to her voice, which was very uncharacteristic of her. She was looking at me as if she were going to jump across the room and gouge my eyes out.

“What happened to you, Sweetheart?” I spoke very gently trying not to set her off again. I took a slow careful step forward. “Is it Laylan, again?”

“No!” she paused and her breath became accelerated as she crouched down to the floor. She had her eyes squeezed shut and her hands on her temples. “Those eyes! I keep seeing them! I close my eyes and there they are! I look in the mirror and there they are! I try to write and they burn through the paper at me! I try to look at the computer and they glare back at me!” She continued in a raised voice almost screaming in hysteria as she pointed to the computer screen. I looked over at it and could see that there was still a picture on the monitor. I walked over to the computer desk and saw a picture of a demon. It was red with black tribal tattoos on its face and amber yellow eyes. At the sight of those eyes, a cold chill ran up my back that could have frozen fire in mid burn. I froze in what seemed like terror that started deep in my gut. I opened my mouth to say something but had to force my voice to work. “Those eyes?” I asked still not able to take my eyes off of the computer.

“Yes, those eyes. Those eyes. And claws that can tear through flesh with ease. And that…” her voice broke off and I turned to see her standing upright. I watched as she fell to the floor in sobs. I ran to her side cradling her in my arms.
for visiting.

“Talk to me, Baby. What exactly did you see?” I gently whispered in her ear. A tear lined my eyes in fear for her. Her behavior was very unlike anything I had ever seen from her and I didn’t understand. All I knew was that if it had anything to do with that demon on the computer then this might be worse than I thought.

“Okay,” she said in between her sobs, she continued in telling me about her dream, not leaving out a single detail. She told me about gashes that had appeared, how she had mumbled some sort of chant under her breath and how the demon had appeared. Abby cuddled in my arms and explained how it had disappeared after the symbol had been revealed. Even now she had thought that she had woke up and had seen it in the mirror and woke up in a start. “Then, I came straight down here, those eyes burning in my mind, to research everything on the computer. I found out that the beast is a demon, rumored to be the strongest and most deadly demon in existence named Balthazar. He only attacks when he is summoned by a spell from the Black Book of Lucifer. Which was the book on the desk; it’s a book of pure, black, evil magic spells, written by Lucifer himself. It’s bound in burnt human flesh, from over a hundred different victims and sewn together to lock in the sinful darkness.” She gazed down at her hand, “Now, as to why it burned my hand. I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

I looked down at her hand then into her eyes that now held my stare. In an instant, as I peered into those eyes that I loved, I saw a flash of white in her hair. Just as I saw the white, it was brown again.

She didn’t seem to notice the look on my face as she continued. “And the symbol that ran the demon off was an ancient rune of protection. One form of the rune is called Eolh. It’s Wiccan or pagan, but I just keep thinking about why I would see something like that.”

I was at a momentary loss of words. I didn’t understand it myself. Finally, I was able to form one question. “Did you find anything on what you had mumbled to reveal the demon?”

“No, I can’t remember the words. I have tried but without any memory of the exact phrases I used.”

I took a deep breath and asked lightheartedly, “Well, do you feel better now that you got all of that off of your chest?

“Yeah, a little,” she answered in a small, anxious voice.

“Then, let’s get you off of this cold floor and into some clothes before you catch a cold or something.” I chuckled trying to lighten the mood between us.

She looked down at herself and realized that in her frantic episode, she hadn’t even gotten dressed this morning. She looked back up at me with shock in her eyes and blushed. Giggling, she said, “Okay, Baby, take me away.” Her sweet, little voice had returned to normal and she threw her arms around my neck.

I slowly picked her up off the floor and carried her up to the bedroom. I could see that she was exhausted and by the time I laid her on the bed, she was already asleep. I looked down at her as I covered her up and noticed that on her shoulders were bruises that looked like handprints. I lined my own hands up to the bruises only to realize that they were much larger than mine.

I pulled back the covers to look over her body and realized that her left hand was red at the fingertips and there were small blisters on them. I looked back up at her face in a realization that this dream was different somehow. This dream, unlike all of the others, had actually affected her. Not only mentally, in a breakdown that she had demonstrated, but physically as well.

At that thought I pulled the blankets back over her up to her neck, I kissed her nose and went downstairs. I sifted through the scattered pages on the desk and began to read them. I was trying to remember if any other dream that she had had in the last six months, had affected her like this.

I spent the rest of the evening reading her stories, again and again, trying to make sense of it all. I looked for anything that could tie a demon in with Laylan. Abby had never had any dreams of this magnitude about anything except Laylan. Laylan was always the only thing that could affect Abby like this. But after hours of reading and searching, I couldn’t find anything that would explain this. I read the articles on the computer about Balthazar and the Wiccan symbol but besides the fact that Laylan was pagan and paganism is usually related to Wicca that was the only thing that could have related Laylan to this.

I called it a night around midnight and crawled into bed with Abby. She was whispering in her sleep and I knew that Laylan was back. All I could think as I drifted to sleep holding my wife was “Please, let this be a good one.”