"No!" The sound of my own voice yelling brought me out of the nightmare. I pushed the covers off and sat on the side of the bed.
"Are you okay?" my husband asked as he rushed into the bedroom. "That dream again?"
Shivers caused goose bumps to rise on my skin. "Yes, the same dream. I can't go to sleep without dreaming about her stuffed on the floorboard of a car." The "she" I dreamed about night after night for nearly a week was our two-year-old granddaughter: stuffed on the floorboard of some car, her little face so pale, a blue ring around her mouth. I had to get her, had to save my baby. Always the dream ended when I woke in fear, trembling, crying, and filled with dread.
"Look, you notified her parents, and they will take special care. Everyone knows about your 'feelings'." Robert rubbed my back, soothing me.
Yes, everyone in the family knew about my "feelings." They knew that I sensed when something was wrong, often having dreams about "things." This time the same dream occurred over and over since Sunday night. I couldn't sleep for more than an hour or two. I needed rest. I stared at the clock.
"It's just 9:30," I mused aloud. "I slept less than thirty minutes."
"You need to sleep. You can't go on like this and keep up with your classes." Robert voiced the same thoughts I had. "Why don't you call the doctor in the morning and see if he will get you something to help you sleep?"
"You know the doctor's office closes at noon on Fridays. I can't get to the phone until after that." I sighed. "I'll just manage some way." I stood. "I may as well find something to do. I guess I could work some more on my lesson plans." I gave a humorless laugh. "I've already finished them through this semester. I've never been so organized before."
After working several hours on lesson plans for the six classes I taught, I couldn't hold my eyes open. Glancing at my watch, I noticed the time was 2:15. I made my way back to bed, where now Robert slept. I crawled in beside him, fell asleep almost immediately, and didn't dream.
I overslept and had to rush to get ready to leave for school. Robert honked the bus horn as I grabbed my bag and hurried from the house. He drove a bus, picking up students at the school where I taught and at another town before transporting them to the vocational technical school in a third town. The district allowed him to drive the bus home, and I rode with him home and back to school the next morning.
I arrived at school to find teachers talking about a girl who had gone missing the night before. Apparently she was to meet her father in the parking lot after a junior high football game, but she never showed. The superintendent walked in the teacher's lounge and handed me a slip of paper.
"I was asked to give you this as soon as you arrived. Your brother said it's very important," Mr. Tomlinson told me.
I glanced at the note, "Have you seen J.J.? She disappeared last night." Suddenly I knew who I had dreamed about. My granddaughter and J.J. resembled each other, and a photo of J.J. when she was two could be one of Macayla now. I had been concerned about the wrong little girl.
By that night, every news program, every newspaper screamed the message: Twelve-year-old Cheerleader's Body Found. A recently released sex offender had been arrested, but too late to save a bright, beautiful young girl. She had been kidnaped, tortured, molested, and strangled. Jenipher J. Gilbert died about 2:10 that Friday morning.
Sometimes I hate these "feelings" I have. I really don't want to know.
