WHEN I GO TO SLEEP—I NEVER COUNT SHEEP—ALL MY DREAMS ARE ABOUT LINDA

Dreams about Linda? No: more like nightmares about Linda! Dreams do not awaken you drenched in sweat, your heart attempting to pound out of your chest, your sheet wrapped around your legs, your pillow on the floor. Linda: why did I know her name? I was screaming it as she came for me with long, dirty, claw-like hands dripping with blood. Her long wild black hair was smoldering, her green cat-like eyes peered from a wrinkled hoary face. A putrid smell preceded her, but the eyes were the worst: they said, you cannot escape; you belong to me. I woke up as her hand raked across my cheek.

My heart hammered for probably five minutes, and my breathing finally slowed down. I was too terrified to try to go back to sleep. I went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. Who in the hell is Linda: I don’t even know anyone named Linda. Four o’clock; I had to be at work at seven. I work at a factory that makes air conditioners, I am an inspector. It keeps me busy enough that I wouldn’t doze off, but what about tonight? I’m already worried about tonight; nightmares can’t kill you, can they?

I’m thirty-six years old and single—divorced, actually—and in good health. I haven’t had a nightmare since I was a kid and went to a vampire movie. It was bad, scared the hell out of me, but it was nothing compared to Linda. I arrived at work a half-hour early and headed straight to the coffee vending machine; thank God for caffeine. Six cups carried me through the day. After work, I stopped at the local hamburger joint and had a cholesterol bomb, a double hamburger with cheese and fries; I wasn’t up to cooking dinner. Now, what did I have to look forward to that evening?

My evening, sorry to say, was three beers and a movie. I was afraid to go to sleep, but I passed out in my recliner. Somewhere around two o’clock, I woke up and staggered into my bed, fully clothed, and drifted off to sleep. No, I didn’t dream about Linda: instead, I was looking down at water, muddy water, and my face was inches from it. It had a foul smell. Something heavy was on my back: I could hear people yelling, some were screaming. Suddenly, I was pushed down into the water, I held my breath as long as I could, then I screamed and the filthy water filled my lungs. I woke up gasping for air; I leaped from the bed and turned on the bedside light. I was beset with the shakes; it was at least ten minutes before my breathing returned to normal and I settled down.

The next night, I slept soundly, perhaps thanks to a sleeping pill my boss Al gave me. Sometime close to dawn, I did dream; not a terrifying dream, but it was very strange. I was in an old building; I feel like it was a church. I was sitting behind a podium, and I was wearing a tall black hat. Lying on the floor in front of me was a young girl; she was sobbing. I pointed my finger at her and started to speak when I woke up. It wasn’t a terrifying dream; far better than Linda and the water.

Two days went by without a dream, and then on the third night, I was standing at the edge of a vegetable garden, and I was holding a five gallon can; it smelled like kerosene. The small house in front of me was a raging inferno; I backed away from the blistering heat. I could see Linda, engulfed in flames, running through the house. Then in an instant, she was on me, beating and scratching at my face. The smell of smoke and burning flesh was overwhelming; I woke up, ran to the bathroom, and splashed water on my face. I looked into the mirror; there were dark smudges and scratches on my face and I could smell smoke. By morning, the smudges and scratches were gone, but there was still a lingering smell of smoke.

I sat with my boss, Al, in the break room, drinking a cup of bitter coffee. I was relating my latest nightmare to him. Al was twenty years older than me; he was short, stocky, and well read. Lunch time would find him with his nose buried in a book. “It seems to me,” he said, “you’re being haunted. I know you live in the country; is there anything unusual about the land you live on, any little graveyards near by?”

“Not that I know of: my dad bought ten acres years ago. He gave me an acre to build on after my divorce. My lot was heavily wooded, except for a sparse clearing near the middle with several large boulders scattered about. My contractor told me there was more than likely a house there because at one time they used boulders for a foundation. The excavator turned up a lot of trash when he dug the crawlspace. There was no doubt that a house had burned down there as there was lot of charred wood and broken glass. There was even a dog collar and some small bones; we figured the bones were from the dog.”

“Whoa,” Al exclaimed, “do you have an abstract on the property?”

“My dad does, why?”

“If I were you, I would check it to see if a Linda ever lived there: who knows?”

Dad found the abstract in a cardboard box in the garage. “I got this from the farmer I bought the ten acres from: they don’t use abstracts anymore, they’ve been replaced by title insurance. You can have it.”

I took it home and opened it up; it was yellow and smelled of mildew. It gave a legal description of the land: it was comprised of forty acres, part of an original 120-acre tract,  purchased for back taxes by Jacob and Linda Miller, June 12, 1881. The same forty acres was put up for sale for back taxes January 1, 1901, and purchased on January 2, 1901 by William Frankford. My hands shook and the abstract fell to the floor.

I took the abstract to work and showed it to Al. “It looks like you have solved the mystery,” he said. “Apparently you built a house on top of the burned-out home of Linda, but now you need to find out more about Linda. Your town has a local newspaper; you need to check to see if they have any records that go back to around 1899.”

And I did, and they did, they went back even further, and most of it was on micro-fiche until they switched to computers. A two-hour search turned up the big story of the month. September 21, 1899: the headline read “WIDOW DEAD IN HOUSE FIRE: SUSPECT ARRESTED. Linda Miller, widow of Jacob Miller, died in a house fire Sunday. Sheriff Abner Cook determined the fire was arson. William Frankford, age 36, a neighbor, was arrested on suspicion. He had on several occasions accused Mrs. Miller of being a witch and causing his barn to burn down. He was later released for lack of evidence.

A witch—Linda was accused of being a witch, there was no doubt the Linda of my nightmares was a witch—a terrifying witch to say the least. But why me? Was it because I built my house on top of hers? Maybe those dog bones were really hers.

When I went to bed that night, I turned on every light. If I had a Bible, I would have taken it to bed with me. I fell asleep, and Linda was waiting for me. We were outside and I was looking at the smoldering remains of her house. Slowly she rose up from the ashes: charred black flesh hung from her face, but her green-yellow eyes gleamed brightly. She held her arms out as to hug me as she advanced towards me. I woke up in a panic in total darkness; all the lights were out. Suddenly, the light in the bathroom came on; I leaped from the bed and ran out to the hall, tripped, and went tumbling down the stairs. I broke something in my back; in horrible pain, I still managed to crawl to the phone and call 911.

I woke up in the hospital in traction: I wasn’t going anywhere for quite a while. I slept through the daylight hours and into the evening. When I awoke, a nurse was standing by the bed. She was tall and thin with long black hair; she was staring at me with cat-like eyes. They were green with dots of yellow; my blood ran cold. “Hello, Mr. Frankford,” she said in a gravelly voice, “I’ll be taking care of you: my name is Linda.”