Chapter 47: S#8. Cloverfield (4)
by fnovelpia
The car had melted down.
A sticky, ashy liquid covered everything around me.
I calmly took a breath.
“This is a dream.”
-Summer had a dream.
It wasn’t the recurring nightmare that had been tormenting him for days.
It was something far worse.
“You’re not the narrator. Your voice is totally different.”
The narration was a woman’s voice, pretentious but pleasantly melodic.
However, this voice was a grating, metallic sound.
I had almost forgotten the narrator’s voice, nearly falling for it.
-…You’re done
Said the person impersonating the narrator.
There was no time to hesitate.
I had to escape from this nightmare.
I grabbed the car door handle and twisted.
It, now flimsy, broke off.
Nancy and Ellen had also melted into unrecognizable forms.
I slammed my shoulder against the car door.
It wouldn’t open and just clattered uselessly.
It felt like being trapped in a burning chocolate factory.
Beside me stood a truck.
The driver extended a hand through the window. It was a clawed hand with three sharp blades.
The arm stretched unnaturally long.
The clawed hand pierced the melted car, reaching towards me.
Three blades plunged deep into my chest.
My heart burst. Pain surged through my body.
-You’re done, Summer…
……Summer!”
I opened my eyes.
Ellen Strode’s blue eyes were looking at me.
I cautiously turned to survey the surroundings.
The horizon shone clearly, and the vast sandy beach spread before me.
Children were building sandcastles, men were swimming, and women were playing beach volleyball.
Laughter blossomed leisurely everywhere. It was a beachside scene.
“You look pale, Summer. What’s wrong?”
“Where, where’s Nancy?”
“She’s at home,” Ellen said.
Nancy was at home. Did she not come with us from the start?
My memories were tangled.
I was confused.
It seemed as if the boundary between reality and dream had collapsed.
If this place wasn’t reality but a dream?
If it wasn’t a dream but reality?
They say if it doesn’t hurt when you pinch your cheek, it was a dream.
I pinched myself. It hurt quite a bit.
So, this must be reality.
I methodically retraced my memories.
In the morning, I had fixed Reiko Ishikawa’s fence.
Then I headed to the beach, and on the road, I saw the ‘Tromaville Butchery’ truck.
After that, my memory was blurry.
It seemed like the deceased Smith couple and a giant butterfly monster had caused chaos.
When I came to, I was back in the car, with Olivia sitting in the passenger seat.
Seeing a woman who should be in hell sitting with us, alive, I realized it was a nightmare.
But returning to the beach… things were still a mess.
“Stress is the catalyst for nightmares, Summer. You’re obviously mentally overworked,” Dr. Johnson, sitting beside me, said.
He was a prominent psychiatrist with numerous achievements in the field of mental health.
“Get a refreshing massage instead, rookie,” Stallone, who had taught me physiotherapy and was my work supervisor, suggested.
“Rather than a massage… try using the massager we sell at our store… hehe…”
Jerry, covered in pimples, added.
He worked at a big mart, tormented daily by a demonic manager.
“Stress isn’t good for you. The Führer always made time for walks!”
Adolf Wernitz, Bob’s colleague, a serious Nazi enthusiast, also chimed in.
“Forget all that, try a donut. Sweet things are the best,”
Bob Bojangles said.
His cheeks were plump like a pig’s.
……Wait.
Hang on. Something’s off.
A chill went down my spine.
I pulled out the axe tucked in the back of my swimsuit.
I swung the axe, slashing diagonally across Bob’s head, cleaving his skull askew.
“Aaaaahhhhh!”
Ellen screamed.
Adolf, his face ashen, leapt up.
“What the hell is this?!”
“That’s not Bob Bojangles,” I continued calmly.
“Bob was bisected by the giant butterfly monster. Don’t you remember?”
The group showed confused expressions.
“Did that happen?”
“It seems like it did.”
“When was that?”
I replaced the axe and furrowed my brow.
“I don’t remember exactly when… but Bob died earlier. That’s not him.”
Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t Bob Bojangles.
Ellen exhaled a sigh of relief.
“That was a close call. Thank you, dear.”
Dear?
I then noticed a ring on my ring finger.
Ellen’s slender finger also bore the same ring.
It was a wedding ring.
“Ellen. Were we married?”
“Haha. Always joking. You can be so playful.”
“Then… Nancy is my daughter?”
“Why are you asking something so obvious? Are you feeling okay?”
Ellen gently placed her hand on my forehead.
“No fever.”
She was a beautiful wife.
It was unbelievable that I had forgotten we were married.
Could I be suffering from dementia?
From the corpse of the fake Bob Bojangles, a grotesque gurgling noise emerged.
It was the sound of blood foaming.
We ignored it.
“The thing about sleep and dreams is that you know when they end but never when they begin,” Dr. Johnson said.
“Freud saw dreams as the gateway to the unconscious. Essentially, dreams are a stage where latent desires reveal themselves.”
There was a stage set up on the beach.
A clown was performing stand-up comedy there.
The audience, angered by the poor jokes, hurled cold jeers at him.
A group adorned with golden sun emblems stormed the stage, dragged the clown off, and buried him alive in the sand.
Suddenly, a splashing sound came from the sea.
The water rippled and splashed up.
Was someone playing in the water?
Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t playful splashing; someone was drowning.
As I got up, Ellen grabbed my arm.
“Don’t get involved, dear. The lifeguards will handle it.”
“……”
A doubt crossed my mind.
“…But why did we come to the beach?”
“We came to catch up with old friends and reminisce,” Adolf said.
“Since when have we been friends?”
I asked. No response came.
Ellen’s grip on my arm loosened.
I turned around. Ellen was no longer there.
Dr. Johnson. Adolf. Jerry. Stallone.
All had vanished as if evaporated by the hot sun.
“……”
What was happening?
I staggered around, looking.
The beach was deserted.
I stood alone in the center of the empty sand.
Only the slow waves wetted the shore.
I blinked, and the scene changed.
The sea had disappeared. Instead of soft sand, my bare feet felt damp moss.
I was in a forest.
Not a fresh, verdant forest but a gloomy, dense woodland thick with fog, rotting tree stumps, and moss.
“…I didn’t think you were like that…”
A chilling voice sounded from somewhere.
I turned around.
A man stood among the dark trees.
He wore an old bowler hat and a striped sweater.
His face was flayed, as if burned.
But I recognized him.
“……Mr. Strode…?”
It was Mr. Strode, Ellen’s husband and Nancy’s father.
“You stole my wife… I can never forgive you…”
His hands had been replaced with chainsaws; he had cut off his wrists and attached two chainsaws in their place.
Vroooom— the engines roared ferociously.
Mr. Strode charged at me, wielding dual chainsaws.
“You’re done, Summer…!”
“Ugh!”
I quickly blocked with my axe.
As the chainsaw blade touched it, the axe blade was sliced like tofu.
A follow-up strike whirred towards me.
I arched my body back just in time to narrowly dodge it.
I reached out and grabbed the left chainsaw.
The roar of the engine transmitted directly through my hand.
Mr. Strode exerted force to shake me off. His strength was immense.
But I was stronger.
I twisted the left chainsaw back toward Mr. Strode’s body with all my might.
The viciously spinning blade tore into his chest.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”
Mr. Strode’s scream echoed thunderously through the forest.
I pushed it deeper. The long blade penetrated his chest and protruded out his back.
Mr. Strode collapsed.
“…I’m sorry for killing you twice.”
It was regrettable.
I turned and walked away down the forest path.
Being barefoot, the soles of my feet stung.
Moreover, the ground had become sticky, making it difficult to move my legs.
The forest was turning into a swamp. The mud swallowed my ankles.
Should I go back the way I came?
I turned to look back.
But Mr. Strode’s fallen body was nowhere to be seen.
I was puzzled. Where did he go?
I looked forward again.
Vroooom—
Mr. Strode was standing in front of me.
The dual chainsaws in place of hands roared.
I had no time to scream. The chainsaw blade cleanly severed my neck.
Gasping, I woke up.
I felt my neck where it had been cleanly severed by the chainsaw blade.
There was no wound.
My head was still properly attached.
It had been a nightmare.
I felt as if I had run a marathon, soaked all over. The bed was also damp.
“Ha… Ha…”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead.
A dream too savage for a 10-year-old.
A dream where I encountered strange monsters in a strange world.
In the dream, I had become a big, fierce murderer, fighting in various places.
A cabin in the forest, sewers, hospitals, beaches, and more.
Each fight was bizarre and insane.
The thrill of slaughtering monsters with an axe still seemed to linger in my hands.
But the vividness of the dream was only momentary.
Soon, the dream faded dimly beyond memory.
I got up from the bed and walked into the living room.
The fire in the fireplace warmly heated the room.
Dad was sitting in a comfy chair next to the fireplace, reading a newspaper.
The atmosphere was cozy.
Dad turned a page of the newspaper and spoke.
“You had a nightmare.”
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