Sleepwalker/Night Runner

This story and these images are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

This story was written by Ed, and with his permission, I have illustrated it and reproduced it here.

They sat at a plastic table in a laundromat watching Ed's sheets and shorts go round and round in a dryer. It was an entirely suitable place for these conversations as Ed no longer kept an office and no one pays any attention to what anyone says in the laundromat.

"Interesting case. He's a somnambulist."

"Hopefully not like 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari'!"

Dr Niella Collins grinned, "Not too far off, but I really don't think so."

This caused Ed to raise an eyebrow.

"He says he's got these intrusive thoughts about murder and finds himself waking up in the middle of the night, fully dressed when he knows he went to bed in his underwear."

"Go on..."

"Nothing in his background to indicate any violent tendencies. It's mixed up with sex, probably-"

"You adorable little Freudian!"

She waved him off, "Sex and one too many Hitchcock films, I think. I'm putting him on trazadone."

"And Frank Capra. Maybe George Cukor."

She laughed.

"So we covered your professional life, how about you? Still running when you should be sleeping?"

Niella wouldn't meet his eye. "Yeah..."

Young and slender, she had the body of an Olympic cross country runner. She'd run for miles in the park at night, then sleep for 3 or 4 hours. They both knew that there was some compulsive aspect to it, but she'd never been able to put her finger on it.

[to be continued]

"That was Fawn Lee, everyone, put your hands together and give her a big round of applause!" The skinny Englishman working DJ got the crowd of (mostly) men going, "And don't forget that little something that says you care...that something with Franklin's or Hamilton's portrait!"

Bills began to rain onto the stage where Fawn had recently done a quite acrobatic performance.

Smiling ear to ear, bouncing off stage, the grin dropped as soon as she was behind the glitzy curtain. "I'm done!"

XJ said, "C'mon doll! One more show? Grace hasn't shown up!"

"Call in Jessica!"

"She's unreachable!"

Fawn blew him a kiss, "That's show-biz, Chief!"

"You-" She was out the door before he could finish the sentence. She suspected that it might rhyme with "hunt, runt, bunt..."

She wore a sleeveless white mock turtle neck knit over a micro-mini pleather skirt. Tall black platform boots went up to her knees.

She'd just done a routine that would have killed a kid half her age, (34), and the only thing that showed was slightly reddened cheeks and a bit of perspiration on her forehead. She knew she'd get good tips - if that thieving bastard XJ didn't help himself.

Walking across the parking lot, she was on her phone. Somehow, this made her feel more secure, even though she was only talking to her 78 year old grandmother.

"Old lady! I'm on the way home. You need anything?"

"Some Ritz crackers and a pint of sloe gin."

"The package stores are closed! Where am I going to get a pint of sloe gin?"

"You work in a damned bar!"

"I can't just hook a bottle from the bar! Are you demented?"

"You don't love me. You are a bad granddaughter!"

"You are a senile alcoholic and I love you like crazy!"

"It worries me, you out late like this all the time."

"Says 'Shanghai Lily from South Philly'."

"Different times. The Italians would put up with the shit that's going on today."

"Language, dear!" Her granny could still make Fawn blush.

"Fuck off. Forget the gin, just come home. We can watch Letterman."

"Letterman's been off the air for more than a decade!"

"I am fucking with you, Kid. Get your ass home."

Laughing, Fawn broke the connection and pulled the door handle on her ancient Toyota Camry.

She paused.

Unlocked.

I'm losing it like Granny she thought.

She slipped behind the wheel.

Her killer had plenty of room in the back seat of the little car. Fawn kept her seat all the way up to the steering wheel.

He had a length of braided cotton rope, about as thick as his middle finger. The ends were looped around both sets of his fingers.

Maybe she sensed something as she slipped her key into the ignition, but her head suddenly jerked right, her long black hair swinging in the opposite direction as he dropped the loop over her head and twisted around her slender neck.

"OIK-kaff-aaakkkkk-", then the only sounds were her twisting on the vinyl seat, her fists beating at his arms and hands and her boots kicking the floor and the pedals.

Leaning to the right, he pulled her over and through the front seats, her legs bicycling and kicking out, one thick boot heel cracking the windshield.

Fawn's right arm was pinned in between the seats and her body as her left flailed, grabbing at the strangling rope, slapping and clawing, then just waving about, weak, aimless.

Illustration (click here)

She trembled violently, her right toe kicking at the dashboard.

Then she went limp.

Her murderer pulled her the rest of the way into the back seat.

Under the lights of the parking lot, Fawn's face looked a little swollen and her tongue was dark lolling out of the left side of her mouth like a small letter "Q". Her pretty brown eyes were crossed, red blotches where they should have been white.

He reached under her skirt and ripped off her soaked pants, then pulled down his own underwear and trousers.

The car had been rocking and bouncing while Fawn Lee died.

After she died, it made a more rhythmic motion.

Illustrations (click here)

William Post was a bookkeeper for a firm that warehoused and supplied groceries to markets all along the Delaware. It paid well and he dressed professionally in what was standard business attire. Gray slacks, a blue button down and brown slip-ons.

In his early 30's with medium height, maybe 10 pounds over where he should have been, brown hair and hazel eyes.

He might have been the most anonymous looking person Dr Collins had ever seen.

"How's the trazadone working out?"

"OK, I guess."

"You guess?" her pen was poised over her notebook.

He was on her big leather couch. She liked the traditional look of the thing, and even if she couldn't achieve a break-through with her patients, at least they could have a nice little lie-down.

He steepled his fingers on his chest, "I don't wake up next to my bed fully clothed anymore, but I seem to have a lot more laundry than I usually have."

"Well, you really haven't been getting a lot of sleep, maybe it slipped your mind."

"Yeah, Doc, that's probably it - but I'm still getting these....thoughts."

Niella tried not to look as interested as she was, "The violent stuff?"

"Yeah. Like, the other night, I pictured myself in the back seat of a car, choking a girl."

"Any dead girls around your apartment?"

"No..."

"Any of them lying around your desk at work?"

He laughed.

"Have you checked the trunk of your car?"

He looked at her, smiling.

"You see, William, they're just thoughts. That's all they are. They're getting in the way of you enjoying your life, but they're only thoughts."

Niella wrote a prescription, "We're going to try you on Zoloft. It helps with that sort of compulsive ideation you're experiencing. You still with Thornton Drugs?"

Ysobel (Yzzy) Mendoza joked that she was learning how to be a vampire at Thornton Community College. She was taking the phlebotomy classes offered there in an effort to find something like a career.

She'd waitressed, bagged groceries, groomed pets, house-sat, baby-sat and dog-sat.

Currently, she was an unarmed security guard for Ajax Security, $15.92 an hour, the New Jersey minimum wage. Once she got a marketable skill, she wouldn't have to depend on the state legislature for her next raise.

Eleven to seven on an abandoned pier on the Thornton International Terminals.

Yay.

No gun, no cuffs, (could have had fun playing with those!), no stun-gun, no pepper spray.

What the fuck did they expect her to DO if she saw anything bad?

Damned radio didn't even work half the time!

Uniform was navy blue polyester pants that made her ass look like the back end of a truck, a lighter blue cotton shirt with the US flag on one shoulder, the Ajax logo on the other, a stupid black clip-on tie, (that currently was laying in the passenger seat of her old Kia), and a cool pair of black Corcoran combat boots she'd found in a thrift store.

Staying awake wasn't much of a problem. She had an Trenta Macchiato from Starbucks that she was slowly working on.

The only down side was that she had to pee every 15 minutes.

Fucking caffeine!

Fortunately, the construction crew had a porta-john on site and it was reasonably clean. (She did carry her own disinfectant wipes, though.)

She amused herself counting the cars in the parking lot left by the construction crew and the tugboat operators.

A collection of pick-ups, older Japanese and Korean cars, and...

Where did that Camry come from?

She could have sworn that it hadn't been there the last time she counted.

Better have a look, but first; she scuttled off to the porta-john.

A few minutes later and appropriately relieved, she stepped out onto the gravel lot, letting the spring door of the porta-john slam shut behind her.

He dropped the loop of rope over her wavy light brown hair and wrapped it twice around her neck, then he twisted around to his left so that her body was dangling over his right shoulder.

"...gurrrkk..."

Illustrations (click here)

Yzzy was in great shape and made a habit of going the gym, but she was at a complete disadvantage.

She managed to get three fingers of her left hand under the rope and gave out with a gargling, "YAAGGG!" as her right arm struck out uselessly behind her and her legs bicycled half a foot above the gravel lot.

Her killer hung on with both hands, slightly crouched, the girl bent over his back.

Panicking, Yzzy felt her tongue filling her mouth, her field of vision going red at the edges. After a bit, her arms dropped and her legs kicked a little in the air,

"Er...HURK-"

Illustrations (click here)

He turned around, lowering her corpse to the ground, but still holding her by the rope.

Yzzy's eyes were rolled up and seeming to be fixed at a point a little left of center.

Her tongue looked as though she'd tried to swallow a purple tennis ball.

Yzzy's heels dug twin furrows in the gravel parking lot as he dragged her to the hood of her car.

He threw the body onto the old car and pulled her across so that her head was hanging over the front right tire.

He unbuckled his own trousers and thrust deep into her mouth, down into her throat.

Illustrations (click here)

William Post.

Something about him just didn't add up.

Niella ran along the path, pushing herself to exhaustion at 4:30 in the morning.

She wore a white University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt, black running shorts, black crew socks and pair of white, thick soled Brooks running shoes. They made very little sound as she padded along.

All she could hear was the rhythm of her own breath.

He had to be lying to her.

"Everything's great. The medication's working."

Great big black circles under his eyes. Starting to look like a cancer patient. He'd easily lost 15 pounds since she'd been treating him.

She'd talk to Ed about this on their next session.

Stephy Preytor was the assistant night manager at Jumbo Food Mart. Her promotion came with the responsibility of The Service Desk, money orders, lottery sales, customer complaints, the self check-out lanes, the care and feeding of three cashiers and two kids who bagged.

For this, she made 50 cents more an hour than the baggers.

She also closed the store at 10:00 most nights.

On this particular evening, it was 10:30 and she was mopping up a carton of eggs that some lovely customer had dumped in Aisle #5, (Baby Products), and she was thinking long and hard about her life-choices.

Tiny, almost pixie-like, with shoulder length brown hair, (pinned up), pretty brown eyes and a longish face that gave her a slightly mournful look - like something bad was about to happen to her.

She wore khaki pants, black pleather sneakers and a blue polo with the word JUMBO embroidered in yellow.

She had to face it.

Her life SUCKED.

Stephy slopped the mop at the crushed egg mess, (ANIMALS! Just...ANIMALS!) and she realized she was talking to herself.

Great.

My life sucks and I'm going crazy.

"I GOT THE WHOLE PACKAGE, BOYS!" Didn't make any difference. She was the only one in the damned store.

She shoved the wheeled bucket to the back of the store with the mop handle.

Caught a glimpse of herself passing the glass case in Frozen.

She had kind of an Anna Kendrick thing going on.

Why the hell couldn't she make it work for her?

"Awwwwww, fuckit!" Just another crazy lady mumbling and swearing to herself. Nothing to see here.

She pushed through some double doors to the storage area and loading dock. May as well start here and check the back door.

After dumping the disgusting mess out of the bucket into the sink and rinsing it down, she took a step back, willing herself not to gag.

That's when he dropped the looped rope over her head and cinched it around her throat.

"Yag!"

He backed up, pulling her along, "Koff-koff-wha-aaggg!" Stephy stumbled, losing her footing and now was being dragged backwards by her neck.

She desperately tried to regain her footing while prying at the rope with both hands. "...aaacckk....ghuggg..."

She felt incredible pressure, as if her head was going to pop like a balloon.

Illustrations (click here)

There was a sensation of warmth, then cold along the inside of her thighs as her bladder let go.

He stopped pulling, but Stephy didn't have any strength in her legs.

Her killer knelt on one knee, twisting the rope as she sat on the concrete floor, legs jerking, arms flailing, fingers twitching. "Ag...ag....grrrgle..."

One final jerky kick with her left leg.

Illustrations (click here)

There was a break room with a long table, some plastic chairs and a battered couch.

He carried her small body to the couch and laid her out.

First, he removed her sneakers. It was easy, she never untied them, just shoved her feet in like slip-ons.

Then, he unbuttoned the soaked khakis and pulled them down along with her cotton pants.

Stephy lay, eyes half closed, the purple tip of her tongue poking out between tiny, white teeth.

She looked like she'd lost interest in the proceedings.

He took her there on the couch.

Illustrations (click here)

Following Ed's advice, Dr Collins fired her patient. It wasn't something she did often, but every once in awhile, there was an intractable case. She was convinced he wasn't being honest with her and if he were to continue, it would have to be with another therapist.

Niella hated giving up on him, but she truly felt that there wasn't anything she could actually DO for him.

Her run had a blind, almost desperate quality, as if she were escaping.

Hold on! Was this some sort of insight?

She'd have to tell Ed-

The punch caught her just below her solar plexus, knocking every bit of the wind out of her.

She didn't wonder where he'd come from, didn't wonder about anything.

Pain - and no breath.

Illustrations (click here)

As she fell onto the path in the fetal position, the only noise Niella Collins could make was "Egg....egg..."

She couldn't breathe IN!

Spots swum before her eyes as two strong hands reached under her armpits and dragged her off the trail.

Illustrations (click here)

She was a little ball of breathless misery and could do nothing about it.

"Here, now, just try to stretch out, that's it...."

"Will-William?"

"Call me Bill. William's asleep right now." The man who stood over her was smiling warmly.

Illustrations (click here)

"N-No! Wait! Wait-MMMPH!"

He fell on her, straddling her upper body with his and clamping his hands over her nose and mouth.

Niella's eyes darted this way and that, looking for help - ANYTHING, while her tongue probed for some kind of gap in his fingers.

"MMMMMPH! GRRRRMMPH!"

Illustrations (click here)

She bucked and twisted, legs alternately bicycling then heels kicking into the dirt.

His knees had pinned her arms to the ground. All she could do with her hands was make fists and clutch at the leaves and dirt.

"EEEEEEMPH! MEEEEMPH!"

Illustrations (click here)

Niella's breasts and belly heaved convulsively for air that would never come.

Her eyes seemed almost impossibly wide.

"....umphss...um....phssss....umph?"

He felt all the strength and energy drain out of her.

Watched her eyes glaze over.

Illustrations (click here)

When he got up, Dr Niella Collins was laying supine on the forest floor, arms by her sides.

Her right hand had a fistful of leaves and twigs. Her left was cupped.

Her legs were spread as if to accept a lover.

Illustrations (click here)

He gathered her up and took her to his mini-van.

In the grocery supply warehouse where William Post worked as a bookkeeper, there was a vast walk in freezer.

After he'd removed Niella Colins shorts and underwear and had her on the back floor of his van, he took her to the warehouse and brought her to the very furthest corner of the freezer.

Illustrations (click here)