I am swimming in a warm creek under a hot sun. Storm clouds appear in the sky with a sudden ferocity, and a silver lightning bolt breaks free from a fluffy grey mass. It cascades down, striking me hard in the top of my skull. It zaps my entire body, shaking me, before tearing through the flesh of my right arm. A dog howls in the distance. It reminds me of laughter.

I awoke sometime after midnight with wet pants. I’d pissed myself again. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the shadows. There was a fat moon on and it showed through the window enough to light my way. For the first time, in over twelve hours, I was able to stand up. I used the seat of a chair to assist me. I started to topple under a barrage of lightheadedness, but caught myself on the chair’s back. I took a moment to allow my brain to stop beating the drum of a thousand horse hooves, and declared out loud that I needed to wash. It was strange hearing my hoarse voice fill the empty room, but I felt that stating it out loud could lend some power to the moment. It could help me reach the bath, and wash away what I’d decided were murderous grains of dirt worming their way deeper into my wounds. If I could cleanse the wound, perhaps some of the pain would subside. I had to figure a way upstairs to draw a bath, but upon reaching them the task seemed more than impossible. It was frightening despite the stair’s familiarity. I’d been climbing them since toddlerhood, and yet they were currently unknown to me like a friend returning from camp after a watershed summer.

“Don’t be a baby.” I whispered in Charley’s voice. “Get up those steps, girl.”

A fresh shot of pain radiated from under the dusty curtain, but it got me moving. I used the railing to hold my balance and made it to the landing. I would have cheered, but bile filled my mouth and I choked instead.

“Almost there.”

I wiped spew from my mouth.

“I can make it.”

Only I didn’t make it. I slipped in my own vomited bile, and that catapulted me back down the stairs where I slammed hard into the wall. The impact caused me to piss myself again. I was covered in dirt, vomit and three bladders worth of piss. I’d been called white trash all my life, but until that moment I’d never felt like white trash. I’d always known that I was clean, despite what anyone said.

“I’m not clean.” I cried. “I’m covered in piss and if I can’t make it up the stairs soon, I’ll be covered in the number twos too.”

I couldn’t stomach the thought, and felt bile coming up in my throat again, but that time I was able to swallow it back.

I woke up on the worn upholstered armchair not sure how I got there. It was pushed across the room to an alternate window, where the sun beat down on it. The seat faced the glass, giving me a perfect view to look upon our quiet street.

Did I push this across the room?

I took to waiting for Charley because that was the obvious point of placing the chair in that spot under the one window that gives me a perfect view of who is coming and going. The minutes turn to hours and Charley doesn’t return even after the sun lifted itself to its midday position. My eyes were growing heavy, but something told me that sleeping, after not eating all day and having a bloody wound on my arm, wasn’t such a good thing. I fought to stay awake, but it was impossible to tell by the blinding sun how much time had passed.

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My eyes are green, like Charley’s, and somehow that is the first thing I saw. I saw his green eyes, like two emeralds, floating and bouncing through the front yard. His body came into focus, and I could see the recognition in his familiar eyes. His smile elated me. I couldn’t return his wave, on account of my right arm being useless and that I was leaning on my left one. He looked beautiful in the sunshine, with pearly white teeth and pink fleshy lips. He wore a fake diamond earring and I could see that glistening in the sunshine too.

My hero, I wish you would break into a run.

Only he continued to walk at a snail’s pace. From behind him the sight of two white globes punches me in the gut. They are the white eyes of the hellhound. That Husky had made his way onto my front lawn and had the dark intention of hurting my Charley on his way to rescuing me. I needed to warn him. I fought through the pain and balled my left hand into a fist with which to pound on the glass. The sound is weak, no more than a dull thud. Charley continued on, oblivious to the monster behind him.

The Husky had grown in size. He was nearly twice his size from before. He hunkered low to the ground intent to attack. I screamed louder and beat the window harder, but it was too little too late. And my sounds were muffled as though I was making them through layers of fabric. The Husky lunged at Charley from behind and chomped so fiercely onto his shoulder he ripped Charley’s arm from his body. My brother’s handsome smile stayed frozen in place. Captured for all eternity was his affection for me, his smile like rigor mortis didn't fade in his final moments. His cathartic eyes met mine, and I momentarily yelled for help before realizing my brother was dead beyond what an ambulance could provide, and more shouting on my part would only alert that damn devil dog and send him hungry to finish me off. Besides no one would hear me. My hyperventilating caused me to propel backward out of the chair where I landed with a hard thud on an ash covered carpet. I passed out.

When I woke up, it was late Sunday night. The moon was completely full and shone in through the window. I was scared to look out. I was scared to see my brother’s mangled, bloodied corpse twisted on the lawn. I settled my breathing, gathered my courage, and climbed up onto the chair expecting to be horrified.

The Husky had cleaned up his mess. Probably, he dragged Charley’s body into the woods to eat. Even with a full moon on it was impossible to see the blood splattered on the lawn, but I could sense its presence.

It has to be there...

The living room was starting to look like a violent crime scene with trails of my blood strewn across the floor and my red hand prints covering walls and furniture. I had to really pull and yank to get the curtain to come loose of my arm where coagulated blood and dirt had glued it to my skin. Swelling had spread beyond the punctures, and a slug colored liquid was draining from the wounds. I tried to guess my temperature, and estimated it beyond 105. It was definitely the kind of temperature that caused my mom to throw back her whiskey, butt her smoke, and load us into the car for a race to the Raleigh Medical Center to treat a fever that if it got too high would cause blindness.

It was the swelling that was making me sick. I’m not so stupid I didn’t realize that. The swelling was the dog’s poison inside of me. It took effort, but I found myself in the kitchen finally. I positioned myself on a chair, in front of the sink, and rinsed my wounds with cold water. Red blood and slime disappeared down the drain, but it didn’t take the pain with it. The pain was an ever-constant bolt of lightning shot through the holes in my arm and electrifying every nerve in my body.

Charley is dead.

I collapsed, banging my head onto the edge of the counter. The new dream does not allow me movement. It is the same catatonic dream of before, with strangers examining me with their brightly lit eyes. Behind them, silently commanding, is the Husky. He is bigger, even than before, with eyes glowing white like the moon. I used to love the moon, but now I despise it, like I would a murder accomplice. I can feel the pain in my arm even while sleeping. The pain radiates throughout my whole body beginning and ending with the wounds. It has swelled to astronomical sizes. I’m disturbed that I can’t remember if my arm has actually swelled to that size or if it’s a part of my dream. The Husky began to growl. The examiners blink their small, bright, watchful eyes as if photographing me with every blink. The poison in my arm erupts like a volcano, spewing in unison out of each of my six puncture wounds sprays of crimson blood, like sound radiating from a church organ’s pipes.