The Dream

By H.E. Kline

The nightmares never end. They steal my breath, slowly suffocating me. Each night a different horror takes shape. I awake from these terrifying dreams in which I'm running from the strangest visions of evil. Visions that can only exist in nightmares; yet, they're all too real to me...

Since the young age of five, Lacy has been plagued by nightmares. These terrifying dreams take possession of her body as the darkness of nightfall transcends upon her. Will she be strong enough to break free of these night terrors? Or will they finally take control of her body, mind, and soul?

2019 Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal For Horror Fiction

• Language: English
• Publisher: H.E. Kline
• Release date: Apr 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781502989673

H.E. Kline

Before becoming an award-winning author, "Lainie" specialized in transcribing expert, medical, and scientific testimony for almost 30 years. H.E. (otherwise known as "Lainie") is a Registered Professional Reporter, a Registered Merit Reporter, and a Certified Realtime Reporter. "I write," Kline says, "in a conspicuous effort to creatively intertwine nonfiction into imaginary contemporary paranormal romance, mystery, science fiction, and horror in a concerted effort to give a 'voice' to those whose voice may have been forgotten or lost in translation".... A Special Message to All Readers Past, Present & Future: I would like to thank all of the readers who have taken the time to reach out to me after having read one of my "crazy" (as my kids would say) supernatural stories, either on Twitter or Facebook, and who have now become my friends. Connecting with you has been the single most rewarding experience of my life (except, of course, for raising three children) ... please friend me on Facebook @https://www.facebook.com/helana.kline.39 or follow me on Twitter @https://twitter.com/heKline or my website @ http://helanakline.wixsite.com/immolation                

Book preview

THE DREAM

EVER SINCE I CAN REMEMBER I have dreaded going to sleep. The nightmares started when I was five years old. There were no scarier words than time for bed or bedtime. My mother thought I was her little night owl, she would affectionately call me as she tucked me in, little did she know what a night owl I was to become. Even at five I would try any desperate measure to avoid sleep. I would sit up straight in bed and read the only book I had in my room back then, Charlotte’s Web, but that would make me tired. So then I would wait to hear Johnny Carson’s voice beaming from my parents’ bedroom and then I would know I had some real time to kill.

I would move to my closet where I had a pretty elaborate setup, I thought proudly, for a five year old. I had my Snoopy sleeping bag sprawled out on the floor of my closet and my Peanuts movie projector set up and ready to go in the far corner. I also had numerous things to keep my young wandering mind busy. There was a deck of cards that I’d kill hours with playing solitaire. There was my mini microscope that I had stolen from my sister Jenny’s room. I had an entire assortment of petri dishes with all kinds of insects that I could study, along with a vast array of horticultural slides. Yes, there was plenty for me to do at night.

On a good night I would manage to stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. and I’d be so tired by the time I actually fell asleep I’d pass out and wouldn’t dream at all. That was a good night. Every few days, though, sleep deprivation would kick in and I’d fall asleep on the couch, and those were the worst days of all. After a couple hours of deep sleep, the nightmares would begin.

It was dark and cold. There was snow on the ground and tiny snowflakes were floating in the air. I was running through a forest holding a young pretty woman’s hand. I studied her face. I didn’t recognize her. I was tired. I was so little I couldn’t run anymore. I fell to the ground landing on a woman’s body. Her eyes were fixated. She was dead. I was crying and my tears landed on her cheek. I could hear the sound of a train nearby. I heard dogs barking and a young boy began running toward me screaming. I tried so hard to understand what he was saying, but it wasn’t English and I couldn’t make sense of his screams. The exploding sound of gunfire permeated my inner ears, and the little boy dropped to the forest floor. The young woman swooped me up and started to run as I tightly wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She was talking to me. I couldn’t understand her words. She wasn’t speaking English, and I just kept crying.

Every dream was different than the last, unique and circumstantial in its own way. There were always common threads, though. It was usually dark and cold outside, there were always people speaking in another language that I couldn’t understand, I was always present myself in every dream, and there was always the distinctive sound of a train engine roaring nearby.

As I grew older, the dreams became even more violent and tragic. Yet, the common threads remained. As the years passed, I would age in the dreams sequentially. It was as if I was the star of my own hellish nightmares. Most events that unfolded I couldn’t make sense of because I was so young. When I was nine after a week of hardly sleeping, I fell asleep on my bed while reading Cujo ...

"It was snowing and there was at least a foot of freshly compacted snow at my feet. I was sleeping in my bed and was awakened by the screams of a woman. She was crying and screaming. I covered my ears with my hands and closed my eyes. There were men yelling but I couldn’t understand anything they said. I got up and slipped a robe on and rushed to my bedroom door to see what was going on. I could hear all kinds of commotion and was really scared to open the door.

Directly across from my bedroom a woman was being held down on the floor. There were two men in strange uniforms holding each of her arms and two men holding each of her legs. She was naked and there was a naked man on top of her. She was screaming and he was slapping her face and yelling at her. I had no idea what was happening.

I screamed at them, ‘Leave her alone, leave her alone!’ A soldier dashed across the hall and hit me so hard across the right side of my face it was as if he picked me up and threw me across the room. I hit my right eye just at the temple on an old wooden dresser and was bleeding and the blood was dripping into my mouth, I could taste it. The young man who had struck me leaned over me and started yelling in some foreign tongue. 

I said, ‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand.’ All the while I could hear the woman screaming. The soldier started to kiss me, and I could see my blood all over his face. The man undid his belt and took his pants down to his ankles. Kneeling over me naked he kept rubbing himself across my face. I’d never seen this before. I’d never seen a man naked. I was nine. He was talking to me, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He kept talking in gibberish, and I kept crying. 

Finally, he stood erect, reached down toward his boot and pulled out a sharp serrated knife. I had never seen a knife so big. I thought for sure:  This is it. It’s over. He’s going to slit my throat right now. Instead with his right hand, he pushed up my nightgown and cut my underwear off. I started crying. I kept saying, ‘No, no, please, no,’ when I felt the worst pain I’d ever felt."

After that nightmare the next morning while sitting on the edge of my bed I decided I was never going to sleep again, and I knew I needed a better plan to stay awake all night long. The only person I thought I could really trust was my older sister Jenny. She was 16 and she knew everything, and I do mean everything. She would know what to do, and she wouldn’t tell on me for sure. I heard the blowdryer in her room and knew she was awake.

Jenny, can I come in? I asked while knocking on her bedroom door. 

Sure, Lace. What’s up, kid? 

I keep having bad dreams. I mean, like really bad dreams, and I don’t want to sleep anymore.

What do you mean? What kind of bad dreams? Jenny asked never diverting her attention from her hair. I didn’t want to tell Jenny anything, but she kept prodding and probing, What kind of bad dreams, what kind of bad dreams? Um, you’re nine.

Really, really bad dreams, Jenny. 

Okay, and Jenny nodded. Tell me one dream. I glanced down at the floor in silence.

After a long pause Jenny said, Just one dream or get the hell out of my room.

While staring at the

Reviews for The Dream

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This relatively short, simple love story is one of the quiet breathing-spaces in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, like Une page d'amour and La joie de vivre; it gives us the chance to recover and reflect a little in between the exertions of La Terre and La Bête Humaine. Zola casts the story in almost Pre-Raphaelite romantic terms: a lovely young orphan who spends her days embroidering vestments in the medieval house of her adoptive parents in the shadow of the cathedral in a sleepy country town (a fictional version of Cambrai); the handsome young artisan who falls in love with her, and turns out to be a disguised nobleman; a climbable balcony; disapproving parents; religious processions; a deathbed scene... You get the picture. Needless to say, there's more to it, although you perhaps wouldn't notice if you weren't pre-warned by the other Zola novels you've read. Angélique (we're told, but she isn't) is the illegitimate daughter of the shady businesswoman Sidonie Rougon, whom we met only 14 books ago in La curée. As such, she's guaranteed not to be 100% mentally fit, and in her case this expresses itself through her obsessive interest in the medieval saints and virgins of the Golden Legend. She manages, with Zola's active connivance, to live in a mental universe that shuts out any kind of intellectual input more recent than the early renaissance. Disguised noble suitors, balconies, inexplicable illnesses and mystical cures are all perfectly normal, but she's completely incapable of imagining any kind of story that continues beyond the wedding ceremony, with predictable (but almost metatextual) consequences. Zola is bashing religion nearly as hard as romanticism: both are part of the fatal Dream that conspires to destroy people's lives (in another world, he might almost have given this book the title The dominant ideology!). But he's also enjoying himself with lots of lyrical descriptions of the embroiderers' work, their tools, their subjects, the language they use, and he doesn't waste the opportunity to tell us about the cathedral and its stained glass, either. A fairly slight book, but with some good stuff in it.

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Despite The Dream striking me as abrupt, I enjoyed the descriptions; architecture and embroidery occupy the majority of such. Again Zola tips his hat to Balzac. Still, I couldn't shake the thought upon completion, that the novel could've been Thérèse Raquin's last thoughts after she swallowed her poison.

[threadnsong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Finally finished it as an adult and loved it. The descriptions of Ecclesiastical embroidery by the Bishop were outstanding in their detail of thread-of-gold and how skilled one needed to be to stitch with it. Also well-done were the descriptions of Angelique's embroidery skills for the then-highest level of embroidery.

I better understood this time around the language, the love story, the descriptions of the history of the home, the family, and Angelique's finding." Zola's kindness with these characters relative to his other books is touching and once again reaches deep into the heart of characters and their motives. And it helped my French remain at the forefront of my brain."

[ariesblue · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

like the fairy tales.the story of the orphan Angélique.and her dream to be saved by a handsome prince and to live happily ever after....
the end was very sad....