The Anticipation of Fear
by
Robert Dominguez Jr.
March 14th, 2005
There once was an old town named Staplesville located just off the Mississippi
River. It was a beautiful town full of equally pleasant people. In the summer
the commonwealth would fish out of the river while the children played. The
summers were long and humid with joyous carnivals and such, while the winters
were cold and short making work a little more laborious. Visitors would often
come by and say how much they wanted to live there, each taking back souvenirs
and photos from the local gift shop where sweet old Ellen worked. She had taken
over and kept it running since her husband passed two years ago from cancer. The
roads where always full of children riding their bikes and dog owners walking
their pets, trying to stay out of the way of joggers. It truly was a splendid
and peaceful place, except for one thing. A child by the name of Beasley, he was
the town bully, and although he was only ten, he was still looked at as a
troublemaking thief. He was a chubby little kid with the facial features of an
old grim man who would often make gloomy expressions to anything anyone had to
say.
The people didn’t care for him too
much, but what was one to do? One summer he vandalized the school’s auditorium
and set numerous dumpsters on fire. Everyone knew he would grow up to be the
first criminal in Staplesville. No one liked or cared to be around him.
Although, he did have one friend by the name of Thomas; Thomas was the son of a
local welder. He was nine and very thin for his age, he wore glasses and always
kept a lot of books with him regardless whether he was in school or not. A lot
of the local town folk perceived that Thomas felt protected with Beasley and as
long as he was his sidekick, no harm could befall him. Then one fall when school
was well underway, Beasley came to school with a terrific tale of a dream he had
just had the night before.
The bell rang as all of the students
hurriedly seated themselves in their desks, the kind with an adjoining table and
a compartment underneath their seat to place their scholastic materials for the
day. The classroom had numerous posters with statements such as, “Stay in
School” or “Don’t Use Drugs”. The teacher, Mrs. Hardy, had always kept her room
in tip top shape. She was always bringing in new charts and graphs and posters,
making sure her students had the best she could offer. Mrs. Hardy was a
beautiful woman in her mid twenties; she wore long brown hair that reciprocated
her eyes hidden behind fine spectacles. She was thin and tall and seemed like a
giant to the children, but model-like gorgeous to the men of the town. She was
well liked and respected for her teaching abilities and was also known as the
only adult, who could tame Beasley.
“Thomas,” whispered Beasley talking
behind his hand as if shielding the noise from Mrs. Hardy who was steadily
writing something on the chalkboard.
“What?” replied Thomas slightly
agitated, as if trying not to get in trouble.
“I had this really weird dream last
night; I mean it really scared me.” That was odd, thought Thomas, a dream that
scared the bully of Staplesville.
“Well, what was it about?”
Then looking around to make sure no
one was prying their nose into his business, Beasley began. “I dreamt that I
woke up in bed full of sweat, but I was still asleep. It felt weird because I
couldn’t hear anything, like all of the sound in the air was sucked out. There
was nothing in my room, I mean nothing. All my toys and clothes and furniture
were gone; just me in bed and my large window from the second story that looks
out into the backyard. I sat there thinking about what was going on, until I
finally turned to look out the giant window. There was a hill not too far off,
only in real life there is no hill. This hill was only in my dream, and the sky
was a horrible dark green and black; the same way it looked last spring when we
had that tornado, remember?”
“Yeah I remember, that was pretty
scary, but hurry up before Mrs. Hardy catches us.” Thomas now seemed eager to
hear the rest.
“The hill and sky were bad enough,
but what was on top of the hill is what scared me the most.”
“Well,” asked Thomas, “what was it”
Beasley looked around again analyzing his classmates for any expression that
they may have heard any of his story so far, due to all the excitement he felt
he may have been speaking a little louder than he realized.
“On the top of the hill stood a man,
only I couldn’t see him because it was too dark. You could see the shape of him,
he seemed tall and crooked.”
“What do you mean crooked?” asked
Tomas.
“He stood like he was broken in a
couple of places.” It was then that Thomas notice for the first time in his life
that Beasley was scared. A look of paleness over took his face with such ease as
he continued his story.
“He never moved . . . never, just
stood there looking into my window . . . at me. I sat in bed trying to pretend
that I hadn’t noticed him, thinking maybe he would think I was still asleep, so
he would leave me alone. But I don’t know if it worked because he just stared
and stared and never stopped.” Beasley was obviously frightened, the dream had
felt too real for him.
“Then what happened,” asked Thomas in
a mixture of concern and curiosity.
“Nothing, I woke up.” The two sat in
their seats, each without saying a word for the next few minutes until the
silence was broken when Mrs. Hardy began her lecture over conjunctions words and
compound sentences.
“Copyright © 2005 by Robert Dominguez Jr. All Rights Reserved.”