[Short Story] - Dream Catcher

“Okay, so let me get this straight. You say you are not psychic but you’re having dreams about being the serial killer on the loose. You told me exactly how each of the victims was killed, gave me information that even the police didn’t know, you have no alibi whatsoever, and yet you’re telling me you’re not the guy we’re looking for?” He leaned back in his chair and scratched his forehead. He couldn’t understand why a serial killer would surrender himself to the police like that.

“Yes,” I answered when told to vocalize my answer–they were recording our conversation.

He shook his head no. “I’m not buying it. I mean, for all I know you could be walking around in your sleep and killing these women. That’s considering your story about dreaming holds any truth to begin with.”

We sat in silence for a while, him tapping his pen on the table and reading whatever notes he had scribbled down on paper.

“Here’s what I think is going on,” he began roughly a minute later, having come up with a possible explanation. “You’re trying to frame someone else.” He pointed at some of his notes with his pen. “You came here with this stupid story of yours about dreaming to tell us exactly where to look for evidence because you planted them there. Yes, there’s no DNA on any of them but we both know who these clues aren’t really pointing at you, are they? Who is it you’re trying to frame, Donald?”

“That’s not true! I told you already, I just want to help.”

The door opened before the detective could reply and a police officer appeared from behind the wooden panel. “Sir, we’ve found another body.”

“You wait here.” He pointed his finger at me, grabbed his coat and stormed off from the interrogation room.

It all began about a month ago when I bought a dream catcher at a flea market. I’ve always been very interested in dreams, their spiritual meaning, and tried myself at lucid dreaming several times. At the same time, however, my purchase was strange for a man like me. I’ve always considered myself more as a man of science–if it couldn’t be scientifically proven, I didn’t believe it worked. The dream catcher that I bought, however, looked pretty and came at a price low enough for me to consider the purchase and forget about my scientific ego for once.

The first couple of nights I had it hanged above my bed I slept very poorly. I was waking up a lot, was covered in sweat in the morning, and woke up feeling even more tired than I went to bed.

I was certain there wasn’t any connection between my poor sleep and the dream catcher, so I brushed it off as being stressed because of work.

The next couple of nights I slept like a baby. I zoned out the moment I lay down and my dreams were far more vivid than ever. I also woke up feeling ready to take on the world without even having my morning coffee first.

Following that, I read more about the dream catcher and read somewhere that it wasn’t unusual for the first few days’ sleep to be poor. Supposedly you had to get used to the dream catcher and the dream catcher had to get used to you.

It didn’t take long for my dreams to spiral downward, however, and I started having very vivid nightmares of murders–starring me as the killer. Having just had similarly bad dreams and poor sleep a few days prior I didn’t think much of it until one day I saw a familiar face on the news. It was a girl from my dreams–a girl I had killed.

I turned the volume up and listened to the reporter describe what had happened. She was found tied up in her basement, killed by a wooden arrow through the heart and heavily disfigured, like all other victims of the serial killer known only by the name of Red George.

They described exactly what I had seen in my dream. The wooden arrow. The basement. Peeling the skin off her face.

I looked up all the murders by the same alleged killer and found both of the other two girls I had had dreams about–both dead.

Over the next few days I jotted down every detail I remembered from my nightmares as soon as I woke up, and over the course of about a month I had dreamt of all eight victims the killer had killed so far.

Knowing the value of that information I rushed to the police to help them catch the killer but they’ve taken interest in me as their primary suspect instead.

It took a little over three hours for the detective to return to speak with me, and the first thing he asked was who I hired to kill in my name while I was being held at the station.

We had some back and forth word fighting but we both knew they couldn’t prove anything–they had to let me go.

When I arrived back home the first thing I noticed was a piece of paper on my door that said my house had been searched by the police in my absence and that the warrant can be found on my desk.

The place was a mess. All the drawers were pulled out, there was stuff on the floor everywhere, and my safe had been opened by force.

I read the warrant and it said that I would be reimbursed for all the damage they had done had I been proven innocent. I chuckled to myself at that last sentence–it was quite the sum to be reimbursed with.

I didn’t do any cleaning that day because I was dead tired from the interrogation that had been well over twenty four hours long. I went straight to bed and fell asleep instantly.

That day I had no dreams whatsoever and when I woke up I noticed the dream catcher had been broken–the police must’ve broken it when they were searching the room.

Over the next few weeks my every move was carefully monitored by the police and when the murders still didn’t stop they had no choice but to admit their false accusations. I was happy to have been finally cleared of guilt.

Ever since that dream catcher of mine had been broken I have seized having dreams of Red George’s latest victims despite him still being on the loose.

Now, however, every time I close my eyes I see his former ones coming back to haunt me for not having stopped him.