Bait and Switch Ch. 15

Nightmares filled my dreams. Explosions, death, and cries for help haunted me, as I tossed and turned, trying to escape from the horrors filling my sleep.

The worst part was that it was the demons dying that I was dreaming about. I had killed for the first time in my life, and no matter the fact that it had been them or me; my conscience wouldn’t let me rest. I watched again and again as one of the short muscled red creatures got sucked out of their airlock and floated through space. When it had actually happened, it had been completely quiet, but my mind added sounds now, as the creature screamed its last. It saw me looking at it, and somehow swam through the nothingness of space towards me, its dead eyes locked on where I floated. My body was frozen, unable to move or try to get away. Cold, lifeless hands gripped me, and started shaking me violently, trying to take from me the life I’d stolen from it.

“Wake up!” The creature cried at me, the voice oddly familiar and higher pitched than I would have expected from a creature like this. “He won’t wake up.”

Only I was awake… Wasn’t I? I opened my eyes to see everyone standing over me, worry creasing their brows, and fear filling three sets of eyes. Summer had me by the shoulders, and was still shaking me.

“I’m awake,” I grumbled, my head throbbing.

“We’ve been trying to wake you for a bit,” mom looked at me worriedly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I tried to reassure her, but I had to stay quiet, as my head was throbbing too much to speak too loudly, “I was just having nightmares, and my head hurts.”

“Nightmares?” Mom’s worry seemed to increase markedly. “About last—” she cut herself off, looking around at everybody else, and I realized what she’d been about to ask. She was worried I was having nightmares about making love to her last night.

“No, just monsters, and stuff,” I mumbled, wanting to roll over, but not daring to go back to sleep, no matter how tired I felt. The monster I’d dreamt about was me, and I didn’t want to face that again.

“Oh, okay,” mom said, sounding somewhat relieved.

“I got a call from the hospital,” Nancy said, talking for the first time, “I have to go back,” she replaced my sister on the bed, and felt my head and cheeks. “You don’t feel like you have a fever, but I don’t trust you’re well enough to drive, especially not in this weather.”

I turned and looked out the window, but all I could see was white. It took me a moment to realize that that was ALL there was to see.

“I can drive,” I told her, knowing that if her job had called her in, then the hospital must be in need of her. I tried to sit up, and throw off my covers, but she placed her hand on my chest, and shoved me back down. I was so weak, that I couldn’t even fight her.

“You’re staying in bed,” mom said. “I can drive them up, and come back down. Your sister can stay and take care of you until I get back.”

I nodded, knowing that I didn’t have the strength to argue. They left me to get some more rest, but sleep was the last thing I wanted right then.

Gina came in to give me a kiss, and tell me she was going to go with her mom. Nancy and mom came in at the same time to say goodbye, and I could tell that mom wanted to talk to me, probably about last night, but didn’t dare say anything with Nancy there, so kissed my brow, and told me to get feeling better soon.

I barely heard them leave through the falling snow, before Summer walked in, with what I thought was hot cocoa. It was, but it was also spiked with coffee.

“You probably don’t want to go to sleep right now. I know how I get after I’ve had bad dreams, and I figured this would help keep you warm, also,” she told me when I looked at her questioningly after my first sip.

“Thanks,” I told her, feeling grateful.

“Hey, I know you’re into some geeky stuff, so this might interest you, but apparently some sort of satellite fell out of orbit, and blew up in the sky last night. The government hasn’t said which one yet. Isn’t that cool?” I knew she was just trying to cheer me up, but I also knew that that was no satellite that’d exploded. It had been full of little alien creatures that I had killed.

I groaned, and rolled over, setting my drink on the nightstand. I felt the bed shift, as Summer laid down next to me, and put her arms around my waist.

“I know you’re not feeling good, but we haven’t talked about what happened the other night. In fact, we haven’t talked much at all, since then. Are you okay?” I could hear the concern in her voice, and despite my miserable mood, I hated to hear her down.

Rolling over, I looked her in the eyes, and tried to smile. “Sorry, I guess it has kind of been a bit hectic around here lately.” I gave her a quick peck on the lips, to let her know I had no issues with what’d happened on Christmas Eve between us. As our lips touched, I was able to sense most of my switches, and knew that mom was driving slowly through the snow. “I will always look back on that night fondly.” It wasn’t until the words were out of my mouth, that I realized how final they sounded.

“So…so you don’t want to do it again?” Her brow wrinkled, and I could hear the fear in her voice.

“I do,” I promised. “I’m just not up to it right now.” Her lips spread in a wide smile that was infectious.

I rolled back over, and when she tucked her hand under me, I could sense all of the switches again, and was thankful that this part of my ability wasn’t hurting me. Despite my desire not to go back to sleep and the caffeine in the coffee/cocoa, I was soon snoring away in a dreamless sleep.

When I woke up, I found that Summer had stripped off all but her bra and panties, and crawled under the covers with me. In a panic I looked at the clock, and could see that mom had been gone for almost four hours. She would be back anytime now. I didn’t know what she would think if she found us like this, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way, either.

As soon as I touched her to wake her up, however, my fears vanished. She was stuck in the snow by the feel of her switches and still with Gina and Nancy.