Nightmares - Short and Sweet before you Sleep Read online

moments as when she first arrived at work earlier in the day the car park was full resulting in her driving around and around waiting for a park to become available.

  Only three cars remained in the car park, one she knew would be the security guard, however a man sat in the only remaining car that wasn’t hers. She immediately became nervous, as it was definitely something out of the ordinary.

  He sat in his car, with dark glasses on, watching her as she made her way across the empty car park to her own car. She could feel his eyes on her, as if his constant peering was burning a hole in her skin in the back of her head.

  The uneasy feeling running deep inside her increasing with each moment that passed. Sandra immediately placed her hand into her handbag attempting to find her swipe card to enter back into the office building for safety – but she couldn’t find it. Her mind racing as to where it was and the image of it hanging on the hook next to her computer screen flooded into her mind.

  There was no way out, she could only make her way to the car and hope that there was nothing menacing about the man in the car parked near her, despite his constant staring that she could feel.

  She placed her key in the ignition and turned it, the engine purring to life as she placed it into drive lurching her car forward. Sandra wasn’t wasting any time in making her way to the exit of the Car Park.

  As Sandra came closer to the exit she could see that outside conditions weren’t ideal, it was raining, and windy not the ideal conditions for the situation that she found herself in. Scanning her parking permit the boom gates opened, Sandra took this moment to sneak a quick glance in her rear-vision mirror.

  Fear struck her when she saw the headlights of a car coming up quickly behind her. Once the boom gates to the car park fully opened Sandra applied the accelerator, a little faster than she usually did, in an attempt to build a gap between herself and the car that was fast approaching.

  Constantly looking fearfully into the rear-vision mirror she was able to put a fair distance between herself and the pursuing vehicle. A sense of accomplishment came across her until the light in front of her turned red, always the law-abiding-citizen she stopped at the red light.

  Sitting at the red light, that to her felt like they had been like this for hours with no one crossing through, Sandra couldn’t help but continue to look as the headlights from her stalkers car came closer and closer towards her vehicle, lighting up more and more of the inside of her car with the headlights shining brightly more the closer he came.

  Just as the car approached the back of her car the light in front of her turned green and she once again started driving away, her tyres slipping and sliding in the wetness that had accumulated on the ground beneath her.

  Her follower continued to gain on her, the shadowy man behind the wheel started to swerve side-to-side as if though attempting to confuse her, he started to flash his high-beams at her making it difficult for her to see outside of her vehicle with the light in her eyes.

  She could hear the follower blasting his horn, it was a deafening sound and one that scared Sandra with every minute that passed by seeing how unstable this guy was becoming on the road.

  With one hand on her steering wheel, her other hand found her handbag and snuck inside the zip compartment of it in an attempt to find her mobile telephone. Although she didn’t have the most cluttered bag, she did have important stuff within it that she had to lug around each and every day.

  As each second passed, and her hands continued to fall on item after item, although she could identify each item that her hand fell upon none of them were the mobile phone she desperately wanted to find, as her hand frantically moved to the next item in her handbag.

  She began to accelerate more, her car easily breaking the sign posted speed limit, hoping that her aggressive driving would stop her stalker from following. It had the opposite effect however, he replicated her moves and had increased his speed.

  This time driving faster than she was and attempting to get beside her.

  Finally, her hand touched the tip of the mobile phone she had been desperately searching for in her handbag, pulling it out she quickly dialled Triple-Zero for Emergency Services.

  “There’s a maniac trying to run me off the road,” she blurted into the phone, almost bursting into tears knowing that she was finally going to be getting some help to get this lunatic away from her.

  “What makes you sure that he is attempting to run you off the road?” the dispatcher asked Sandra, who continued to watch her review mirror at the aggressive movements the car behind her continued to make.

  “He has followed me from my work place,” Sandra started to explain to the operator on the phone.

  “Is a work acquaintance?” the operator asked attempting to piece together the puzzle that she was being told during the phone conversation.

  “No, but he could be someone I denied the insurance claim of,” Sandra replied. Running the image of the guy through her head like some internal CIA Computer running face-recognition. He didn’t look like someone she had previous dealings with, however with her current work load she may have easily forgotten his face.

  “I have dispatched police to your location,” the dispatcher on the other end of the mobile phone call finally said the magic words Sandra had been waiting for, a sense of ease coming over her.

  “Are you able to make your way to the highway and continue along that to make it easier for officers to intercept?” the dispatcher asked Sandra.

  She began looking at the signs on the road she was coming up to, recognizing it was easy to get to the nearest off ramp.

  “Yes, On Ramp 37A” Sandra replied.

  “Good, Officers will be awaiting to intercept.” The dispatcher said before the signal grew weak and the phone call dropped out.

  Sandra made the right turn she needed to head towards the highway, she knew if she followed that for three hours she would be in the nations’ capital, she didn’t want to make it that far though she was scared, and worried about what this maniac wanted to do with her.

  Hopefully police would be just ahead on the highway she thought to herself as she kept driving. The car following her made the same right hand turn, once again flashing his lights and beeping his horn in an attempt to run her off the road.

  She glanced in the rear-vision mirror watching the drivers erratic behaviour, this was causing her more concern with the notion he would run them both off the road, she turned her eyes back to the road to see a kangaroo bouncing across the road.

  Sandra pulled the steering-wheel hard to the left to drive around it, the car on the wet asphalt started to lose control, she quickly attempted to correct her mistake by turning the wheel to the right and slamming her foot on the brake pedal.

  It was too little, too late, the car fish-tailed violently as Sandra’s car veered towards the medium strip, hitting the grass on its verge and spinning around before making heavy contact with the cement wall on the far side of the road.

  Sandra fought hard to open her eyes, when she did she could see her windscreen smashed, she felt terrible and picked her arm up to rub her head. As she pulled her hand away she caught a glimpse of something on it, focusing carefully she realized it was blood.

  It took a few minutes for her to remember what was happening, she frantically looked around. She could see the headlights of the car that had been following her, they had stopped about twenty metres from where she had crashed into the wall.

  She heard the car door open, and saw the silhouette of someone walking in front of the car headlights, temporarily blocking them out as the man walked slowly towards her car.

  “Please help me,” she screamed in an attempt to appeal to his compassionate side.

  “Get out of the vehicle now,” the grizzly voice of her follower replied.

  “Okay, okay” Sandra said admitting defeat, she reached across to unclip her seatbelt and started to open the door handle.

  “Get out of the car now you psycho,” the man
who stood near her car commanded again. Sandra thinking to herself it’s a bit rich this mental lunatic calling her a psycho after he had effectively run her off the road.

  “Please don’t kill me, please,” Sandra begged, tears welling in her eyes as she slowly came to the realization that her moments were numbered.

  “I’ll do anything, anything, just please don’t kill me.” Sandra continued to beg towards her attacker.

  She could hear the sirens of the local police officers getting closer, and had hoped that if she could just stall her attacker for a few minutes that she could be saved.

  However, at the pace the man, who she could now see clearly was carrying a shotgun, was acting towards her, and with the medium strip separating her from the bushland on the other side of the road, her next thought was to make a run for it, hide in the trees’ until the police arrived.

  It was, in her head, decided, if she was going to die, she wanted to at least die attempting to stay alive rather than just accepting her fate. She took a deep breath, and in her head counted to three before jumping to her feet and making a run for the trees’ on the other side of the road.

  “Don’t run from me. I will get you.” The attacker shouted before two shots rang out. Followed by another two, the sound of gunshots made Sandra duck and dive, tears filling her eyes yet thankful she was still alive.

  “Ma’am it's okay,” the man started yelling towards