[Note: This short story first appeared here in 2009; it was inspired by real events. Happy Halloween, everyone…]

There Is Only Room Here for Myself

He’d spotted me.

His dead shark eyes locked onto me, and in that split second, I knew: I was going to die.

I sprang to my—bare?—feet, running blindly through—through what? What was this building? A hospital? A parking garage? Too dark to see.

Chunks of plaster spit at my face as I rounded a corner; he’d just fired at me from behind. Terror exploded through me, slamming into my body. My bladder released; urine ran down my naked legs.

My wet feet slipped on the tiled floor. I went down hard as another shot roared over my head. I scrabbled toward the door to my left, skidding on my own piss.

I knew before I touched the knob: locked.

I struggled to my knees, to run to the next door—too late.

He was already there.

I couldn’t breathe. My legs were cold. Vomit curdled into my throat.

Please! Please don’t do this!

He raised the gun, stepping closer to where I knelt, shaking. The gun’s mouth seared my skin as he pressed it to my forehead.

I blinked, once.

Please.

He fired.

The world tilted—I was on the floor. It was dark. In the faint light from windows far above, I saw his heels move away from me down the hall. The man was leaving.

How could this be? How was I still alive? Had he missed?

Don’t move. You’re supposed to be dead. Don’t move.

I knew I should remain still, in case he returned, but a maddening curiosity seized hold of me.

Slowly, I began inching my fingers across my forehead, searching for the gaping edge of a wound I knew must be there, but could not, somehow, feel.

I probed.

Slowly.

Wetness.

He must have missed.

Sweat?

I touched my fingertip to my tongue.

Not sweat.

Blood.

I forced my fear aside and walked my fingers slowly up toward my hairline, searching for the hole.

My fingers touched only smoothness, my own skin, slick and cool. Terrified, I pressed on.

And then—

Bone.

Fragments, sticking to my fingertips. A horrifying absence of flesh.

Blood, inexorably pulsing.

I began to scream.

My eyes flew open.

Darkness suffocated me.

My heartbeat shook the bed beneath me—bed?

I lay utterly still, feeling the warmth of my body ebbing away with each frantic heartbeat.

I was frozen in place, waiting for the shark-eyed man to return, too terrified to move.

Surely he would return.

My legs were cold, so cold. I’d never felt such cold before.

I reached a furtive hand down to try to wrap my gown tighter around me. There was fabric under my hand, but thicker, softer—a blanket? My forehead itched; I was afraid to raise my fingers to it.

If I don’t touch it, it’s not real.

A menacing rumble sounded beside me in the dark. I froze again and held my breath, trying to identify the sound over the violent pounding of my own heart.

Sudden movement beside me—

My husband rolled over.

Sharp, painful relief, flooded through my body as it dawned on me at last where I was.

Bed.

My own bed.

Dreaming.

I’d been dreaming.

A nightmare.

I was alive.

Alive!

I cried my reprieve silently into my pillow, waiting for the terror to subside. It did, slowly, and the minutes crept by, silent but for my husband’s heavy breaths. My terror gradually began to fade and take on that particular haze characteristic of all dreams.

I jammed my back against my husband’s chest, burrowing into his arms and wrapping the blanket tightly around us both, grateful for his warmth.

Long minutes passed in the darkness around me; a sense of peace returned. I began to feel warm again, comfortable, drowsy.

I felt the tiny itch again on my forehead, and without thinking, I sleepily raised my fingertips to scratch at it.

I began to scream.

Wetness.

Blood.

Fragments.

The room tilted crazily around me once more.

And then, there were only the cold tiles beneath me, a hole blasted through my flesh and my bone, and the dim vision of the man’s heels, casually retreating down the hall.