Jaded Nightmares

By Sarah Lazowski

The question is, will she live long enough to be able to accomplish what she set out to do?

Jaded Nightmares is a novel made up of short stories that tie into each other in a small way.

Excerpt: As I walk through the jaded glass of my past it reminds me of all of the cuts I have endured and how much pain the past has caused me. I try to forget I try to move on. I say the past is the past Live. Learn. Move on, but the past is haunting my dreams and tearing at my soul. How do you stop the hounds of hell in your dreams??? Make it stop, make them go away. I need to sleep to heal and not feel this pain. I want to run and hide, no more pain I beg the night I want to feel pleasure not pain. The voice in my dreams whispered there is always pain in pleasure and pleasure in pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Lazowski
• Release date: Feb 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301419500

Sarah Lazowski

Sarah Lazowski is a mother of a fifteen year old daughter and thirteen year old son. She lives with her boyfriend of thirteen years in Oshkosh, WI. Sarah works part time for a Newspaper and when she is not at work she is at her desk writing, working on the next novel or writing down ideas for novels.

Book preview

Jaded Nightmares

Sarah Lazowski

All characters and events portrayed herein described are fictional and are the exclusive creation, content, and property of Sarah Lazowski. Any similarity to persons living or deceased is strictly coincidental. Any use of name brands is done so under the Fair Use Act.

Jaded Nightmares Sarah Lazowski

Published by Sarah Lazowski at Smashwords

Copyright © 2012 Sarah Lazowski

All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1470032368

ISBN-13: 978-1470032364

DEDICATION

I would like to thank my wonderful children, Cheyenne and Nicholas, or dealing with my crazy behavior while writing this and, my wonderful man James for standing by me in my craziness to get this done.

I would like to thank my best friend, Debbie Hoke --without you I don’t think I would have finished.

My best friend, Stephanie Goli -- thank you for helping me and listening to me at work.

My wonderful friends at Midnite Storiez -- thank you for helping me with the creative input.

Destinie Meeks for the wonderful cover -- thank you!

Last, but not least, my wonder editor, Brittany Carrigan!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my children Cheyenne and Nicholas for sticking by me during all my babbling sessions of writing. Special thanks to Stephanie for listening to me at work go on and on about needing to edit and meet my word count. Special thanks to Debbie for helping me through my crazy moments when the story was not going the way I thought it should or when the characters were acting a way I did not want them to. Special thanks to my wonderful editor Brittany Carrigan without you this book would be very unpolished and still sitting on the shelf driving me insane. Special thanks to my wonderful artist Destinie Warpinski for the wonderful cover.

INTRODUCTION

Sarabella sat there staring at the papers in front of her, debating where to begin. Should she start at the beginning, since that is where all good books and stories start?

This is not any story though; these are the dreams, visions, and nightmares that have haunted her since birth. While doing transcendental meditation, she was encouraged to record every dream, vision and nightmare.

One such nightmare sent her off on a journey she never could have imagined would send her a path so twisted and unreal that she feared her own sanity.

***

On Sarabella’s sixteenth birthday, under a beautiful full moon, she was finally able to practice meditation for the first time by herself without a guide or a parent standing over her shoulder. This is what she saw and what has been troubling her mind since.

She was told when meditating alone to stay on her path and never leave it for fear that she might die. Although she had her doubts, she intended to follow this advice because it is what she was told to do and she was always the good girl. Walking down a path, she heard her name being called out. She turned to the right and saw a huge white wolf run into the woods. She stood there for what seemed like forever debating if she was going to follow that wolf calling her name or turn and walk the path she always walked when meditating with a guide. She stooped and placed several rocks down along the trail to mark where she was, then turned and followed it, not knowing that she was about to see the worst thing in her entire young life.

As she followed him deeper and deeper into the woods, she spotted a very pregnant woman walking along a trail. She watched as the wolf caught up to her and transformed into a man and she heard him inform her that she was needed at home. She heard the woman respond to the wolf-man that she needed some wild lavender for the baby and to stop worrying since the baby wasn’t due for a month and a half yet.

As she placed her left hand on the tree and knelt down to grab some lavender, a hand came from behind the tree, covering her mouth, pulling her against the tree and tying her hands behind the trunk. The person put a belt between her teeth to silence her and also placed a pillow case over her head.

As the wolf-man tried to stop it, he was pulled away, and weird silver bracelets were placed on his wrists and a belt was put between his teeth, so he could not call for help.

There were three people attacking the pregnant woman and wolf-man: two men and one woman.

Sarabella sensed that one of the men that one of the men out of her line of sight was a very powerful hate filled man. She tried to move to get a better picture of him, but she felt frozen where she sat concealed behind the trees.

The man holding onto the wolf-man was fat and not that tall, maybe about five feet seven inches with jet black hair. The woman was a red head, a bit on the chubby side, about five feet five inches tall. Both of the people she could clearly make out felt and acted like they had a mean demeanor and were filled with hatred.

The red head put a bag down next to the pregnant woman, pulled out a knife and cut the woman’s abdomen open, pulling the baby from her.

The red headed woman was pissed that the child was a girl as she had been told by the hate filled man standing in the shadows that it was a boy.

This Native American woman, he said, was carrying her husband’s son.

Placing the baby on the ground, she pulled out a gun, put a potato on the end of it and shot the woman twice in the chest. The fat man pulled the wolf-man over to the dead woman and shot him in the head. They took the silver bracelets and the belt off him and put the gun in his right hand.

The red headed woman opened the bag and pulled out another baby. There were two babies? She tossed the second baby to the ground between the already dead bodies and picked up the baby she pulled from the Native American looking woman, after stabbing the baby she had tossed, she got up and walked away with the two men.

***

Sarabella saw that horrid sight in her nightmares for three months straight. She has always wondered who they were and if the woman, baby, and wolf-man had ever got justice.

***

She has seen little bits of hell and she has seen little bits of heaven. Never staying in one place very long, only long enough to see what she was supposed to see, and sometimes she only got a flash of a picture and that was all. Sarabella has never told anyone of these nightmares, visions or dreams. She was always too afraid she would be sent to a nut house.

Recently she has been feeling a push to write these down. She does not know why and she does not know what, if anything, will come of it.

What she does know is that she has always listened to her intuition. So when it tells her to write, she writes. If it tells her to run, you bet your sweet ass she will run as fast as she can. Sarabella knows that parts of what she will tell you will be hard to understand and may seem farfetched. All she can say is next time you wake up and fully remember your dream, write it down and see how you feel about critiquing someone else’s dreams.

***

Here are the dreams, the visions and the nightmares that have haunted her since her birth. She does not know if these people are real. All that she does know is that she is being haunted by these stories and they need to be told.

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned in them, or maybe it is just someone trying to get her attention to have her listen to their story and see their name in print. Either way, this is what she has lived with and heard her entire life.

***

Sarabella gathers her things and goes to the Shaman’s house to get ready her for this ‘adventure in time,’ as he calls it, not knowing what she might see or feel. She knows that this is the only way to figure things out so that she can hopefully move on with her life.

Her hope was to find a way to stop what she feared was on the horizon and to put a stop the dreams as well. Only time will tell and yes, that is a pun, she knows. Shaking her head and chuckling to herself, she pulls into the long driveway and makes her way to her uncertain future or past -- whichever it is she will see today.

He said she had to travel in time in order to figure out what was going on in her life. This was something she does not believe in, traveling back and forth in time, but she would give it a shot. She will do anything to try and figure out why she is constantly having flashes of different lives, feelings of déjà vu, and having the most vivid dreams and nightmares she has ever had.

Taking a deep breath, she exits her car and walks up to the Shaman, whom has become a great friend and confidant as of late. She smiles warmly into his deep brown eyes and follow him into the meditation hut. They exchange pleasantries then both walk over to their seats and sit down. He does his thing he always does -- chanting, lighting incense and circling the fire -- then he looks at her and smiles. He nods his head for her to begin what they have talked about and practiced the last few months.

Sitting quietly, trying to calm her mind, she begins to visualize the old oak tree she uses as her focal point. Walking over, she sits down quietly beneath the tree, calming herself even further. Sarabella closes her eyes while opening up herself to use her other senses to see what is around her. She can sense someone or something is close to her. She opens her eyes but cannot see anyone. She closes her eyes again and something brushes her left arm ever so softly. She pops open her eyes and jumps up to her feet at the same time. Again, nothing is there… just the autumn leaves falling to the earth. She must be feeling a little nervous or anxious to begin this journey, she shakes her head as she settles back to the ground, and slowly she closes her eyes again and settles back into mediation.

As she fully relaxes, she opens her inner eye wide open and sees a man sitting in front of her. He has very long thick black hair that reaches past the middle of his back and deep chocolate colored eyes that warm the harsh lines on his face. He smiles at her and tells her it is time to start sorting through her mind, to figure out what is to be and what has been. Some of the things she will see are of her life; while some of the other things she will see are of others in her other lives, and others still will be of lives connected to her.

Sarabella was extremely confused by all the information the man has given her, but will she try to stay calm and do as instructed.

Slowly, after closing her eyes and centering again, she begins shifting through what she sees in front of her. As she shifts through the sands of time, she looks for the time and place that pulls her where she needs to be. She stumbles upon a thought of jaded glass and a nightmare. Stopping, she watches as the thoughts unfold to reveal the story like a movie in her mind.

CHAPTER ONE

As I walk through the jaded glass of my past, it reminds me of all of the cuts I endured and how much pain the past has caused me. My grandmother’s words ring through me. You need to try and forget to move on, the past is the past, and you need to live in the here and now, to learn and to move on with your life. But, the past is haunting my dreams and tearing at my soul.

How do you stop the hounds of hell in your dreams? Make it stop; make them go away. I need to sleep, to heal and not feel this pain. No more pain please. I beg the night. I want to feel pleasure not pain.

The voice in my dream whispers, ‘There is always pain in pleasure and pleasure in pain.’

Why do I dream of pain? Have I somehow pissed the off gods that they torment me in my dreams? These are not your ordinary childhood nightmares; these start out nice, then bam -- I am slammed with it -- soaked to the core in pain. Throwing my head back screaming as my body feels like it is being ripped to shreds from the inside out. Where have the pleasant dreams filled with love and happiness gone? I just need a bit of happiness to keep me going so I do not drown in the darkness that is now surrounding me. I beg and plead for answers, but no one ever answers me.

That damn voice keeps telling me to ‘let the pain go and pleasure will follow,’ but how is that even possible?

The dreams about what was to come in the future have all dried up and left me. Last night was just like all the rest this week; walking through my past seeing all the pain. I want to move on, need to move on and make this pain stop. His laughter is filled with more pain, his voice is like dull knives on the inside if my skull scraping slowly to cause the most pain. I need to wake up. I tell myself to wake up.

His voice is in my head again as he laughs that deep baritone laugh before saying. ‘Not time yet, my little Star, not yet, but soon very soon.’ I try to shake my head to make his voice go away, but that never work, it only causes my head to hurt more and fall back into the nightmares.

I went in search of answers and instead find a demented man who kidnapped me and swears he is trying to help me work through who I really am. All I want to do is escape and move on with my life. I don’t even care if I get answers anymore; the pain just needs to stop.

He told me today was ‘all pleasure and no pain.’ God, if that was truth I would be in heaven! Why is he keeping me here? I just want to wake up and go home to my family.

He laughs at me and says. Not yet, Star not yet."

I am so sick of him telling me that and calling me that stupid name. I wish he would curl up in a whole and die slowly and very painfully. Those are the words I really want to scream in his face instead demand, Why do you call me Star? That is not my name!

Yes it is, he says, You are mine now, come here.

He drags me into the bathroom and strips off my clothes. Fighting him only causes broken bones and he still get what he wants, so instead I just stand there like a child waiting for the chance to run to freedom. He turns the water on and pushes me under it. The hot water feels so good on my sore bruised skin. I feel like he left me alone since he is not right there touching me. Then all of a sudden he is behind me touching my back with one finger. He slides it slowly up and down my spine, sending goose flesh everywhere. He laughs, and then moves in closer so his front is touching my back and I realize he is naked as well.

I beg him to stop touching me.

He says But I have not done anything yet, my Star.

Then he pushes my legs wide apart and puts one of his hands on my curly red mound and starts to rub his finger up and down my slit, rough but slow. I try to close my legs again but he will not let me.

Come on, Star, he says. Do not fight me tonight, I told you pleasure, not pain.

He grabs a fist of my short curly red hair and pulls it hard and back towards his mouth before whispering in my ear. Or are you craving pain tonight? Tell me now, Star, pain or pleasure tonight, which will it be?

Neither! I want out! I scream at him. Just let me leave or finally kill me!

No, Star, please. he whispers, Let me do this, let me show you pleasure, he said gently in my ear.

He takes my hand and leads me out of the shower to a wonderfully smelling bubble bath. When did he fill the bathtub? He ‘asks me to get in,’ not push or demand, but asks me. I am so shocked by this that I crawl into the huge oversized tub. It feels so warm and safe almost like it has been years since the warmth surrounded me and entered my battered soul. I instantly lower myself deeper into it enjoying it even though part of me wishes I would not, closing my eyes for the briefest of moments while my mind screams at me. Why? Do not enjoy this, it is only a trick, you know what will happen!

The movement of the water has me opening my eyes, and I see him enter the tub. He pushes my legs aside and enters me. Before a scream can fully escape my lips, he kisses me. As I raise my left hand to push him away, he grabs both my hands in one and holds them over my head. He will not stop kissing me, or holding both my wrists in his one hand. He never kisses me. He starts moving ever so slowly down my body with his free hand; still his lips never leave mine. Why, is he doing this to me? He always fucks me hard, and then leaves me to think about what just happened.

I close my eyes and try to find a peaceful memory to hold onto. He stops and demands I open my eyes. He looks into them and says, Star, please stop fighting me. You will know the truth soon. Let me help you.

As soon as I open my mouth to yell at him, he is kissing me again and fucking me hard. Oh for the love of all the gods, please make him stop!

I woke up...Wait I just woke up from this terrible nightmare!

I jump out of bed and start to run for the door, only to stop dead in my tracks. Where the fuck am I? How in the hell did I get here? Wait that is not the door to my room... I let the words trail off to the empty room.

My hand shakes violently over the handle, debating if I want to open the door. Turning the knob at the pace of a snail before just as slowly pulling it open, I smell coffee. Oh bittersweet drink of the gods. I need you flowing through my veins to wake me further from nightmares and show me the light. Slowly walking towards the smell, not knowing where I am going, but the coffee is calling me like a siren, pulling me with an invisible chain down the path straight to it.

The hall is a pale blue color with nothing on the walls but the paint. The floor is beautiful dark cherry hardwood. I enter the kitchen of my dreams and stop; HE is standing there with his back to me. I want coffee so bad my mouth is drooling from the smell, but I am no longer in THAT room, so I turn away from the smell of coffee and him, looking down the long empty hallway as his voice calls out to me.

Good morning, Star, I have coffee for you with hazelnut creamer, that is your favorite, correct?

Frozen in fear that he caught me outside the room without his permission, my body starts to shake from head to toe.

Please, come and sit down, he says from behind me.

He said ‘PLEASE’ again, I thought to myself.

I say, ‘‘No thanks,’’ then turn my body more towards that long empty hallway and start to run as flight or fight kicks in. He is suddenly there holding my hair tight in his fist.

SIT DOWN NOW! he growled in my ear. He is back to ‘pain’ as his voice sends my head into an instant migraine, with a thousand little nails scrapping the insides of my skull. He drags me over to a plain brown wooden kitchen chair and tosses me in it. My tear filled eyes stare at the ugly, worn wooden table in front of me.

Why is it you only respond to pain? Don’t answer that I am sure you have no idea. Drink this, you need your strength today, he tells me with such hatred and anger in his voice.

Why do I need my strength more today than any other day? He turns and just looks at me like I have two heads. I just said that in my head right? He did not hear me, right? Oh shit he did!

He grabs a fist full of my hair and drags me half out of the chair and kisses me hard, raping my mouth with his tongue.

Pulling away, he glares into my eyes. Every time you question me or do something I don’t like, that is your punishment. Unless you LIKE me kissing you, Star? So tell me, kisses or drink the fucking coffee?

My response is to launch myself at him