Brian
It had been silent in the car. He had been perfectly
fine with that. It was the kind of comfortable silence that he and his wife
could share. That is if you didn’t count the boy in the backseat, who was
humming along with one of his favourite songs. No, the silence between him and
his wife had been nice, friendly even. It was nothing like the suffocating
silence that accompanied him now. He just couldn’t breathe…
It hadn’t been his day. Not from the first moment he
woke up. Not that he had slept much anyway. The last couple of weeks had been
filled with nightmares. He knew it was always the same one, but the details
remained fuzzy to him every time he woke up screaming and sweating. Leighanne
had been worried. She was always worried about him. He told her he was fine.
Nightmares were nothing new, he had had them before, they always went away
after a couple of weeks. But in the meantime it left him exhausted. He was glad
that they had taken a break from touring.
“Baby, are you okay?” she had asked for the thousandth
time that day. Oh dear, and it was only noon. He had told her he was fine like he
had done a thousandth times that day. He was exhausted, tired to the bone, but
he was going to have a nice afternoon with his wife and son and nothing could
take that away, not even a speeding truck.
Hold on, a truck? Where
did that come from? There wasn’t a single truck in sight. In fact, there
wasn’t a single nothing in sight.
What had possessed Leigh to eat 40 miles out of the way, was beyond him, but he
had never been able to refuse any strange thing that she’d come up with. He
loved her too much for that. She had been convinced that there was no good
Italian restaurant anywhere near Atlanta and had persuaded him to take the jeep
and bring them 40 miles down the road to a place she had looked up on the
internet that had looked nice. Stupid
logic, he thought moodily. Baylee had been perfectly okay with everything.
Baylee always was perfectly okay with everything. It wasn’t difficult to please
the kid. He could enjoy himself just staring out of the window and singing his
favourite tunes.
Brian Littrell smiled to himself. He glanced sideways
to his wife. They had been lucky with a kid like Baylee. Imagine what would
happen if their son had been a spoilt brat. No, Brian made sure that his child
stayed down to earth and learned to accept the hectic lifestyle.
“You know this one, Bub?”
He turned the radio louder and the speakers filled
with Thriller from Michael Jackson.
Of course his son would recognize the song. He had been a newfound Michael
Jackson fanatic and knew every single song to a tee.
“Yes, dad, and don’t call me Bub,
I’m not a baby anymore.”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot you’re all grown up now.”
Ever since Baylee had gotten it in his head that he
was going to be ten this year, he did not want to be called any other nicknames
then just plain old Baylee. Brian refused joyfully, having always called his
son Bub, he was not going to change. Baylee would get
annoyed and give him a ten minute lecture about how his friends were going to
see him whenever he was called Bub in public. This
time was no different. He only half-heartedly listened to his son’s tirade
about acceptance (what do you think my friends will say when you call me Bub?) and being old enough to go by his own name (it’s bad
enough you called me Baylee, which is totally a girl’s name by the way, can’t
you just call me Littrell?) and finally the boy would explain how he’d rather
have Brian not call him anything, in fact, he didn’t want Brian to call him at
all. Brian supposed it was one of those pre-teen things, but he couldn’t be
bothered by it. He just thought it was really funny and laughed at his son
whenever he began one of his tirades again.
Baylee glared at him and turned away towards the
window again. Brian couldn’t stop smiling as he too returned his gaze on the
road.
“Jezus Christ!’’
He could have sworn his heart stopped and started
beating again when he realized that there was nothing on the road. For just a
nanosecond he had seen it. The huge beast of a truck, just as big as two of
their tour busses together. But when he blinked a couple of times the thing was
gone. Great, now I’m hallucinating,
what’s next? Sleepwalking in my nightmares? Wait a sec… nightmares?
Breathing hard, he searched the road for traces of the
vehicle but found none. Suddenly he was aware of an ominous feeling of
foreboding and the road upon which they rode seemed awfully familiar. He had
been here before. Something terrible was going to happen. He had to stop it! He
looked around frantically, searching for an excuse to turn around and head back
home, where they would be safe.
“You feeling okay, honey?” Great question! And what a timing!
“I really don’t feel good, do you feel good? I wanna
go home, don’t you wanna go home, baby?”
“No, I want to go to the Italian restaurant!”
Wow, great moment
to decide to start whining Baylee!
“Brian, what’s wrong, are you sick?’’
“I don’t know, it’s probably nothing, but I really
think we should go back.”
“Why?”
What are we
doing, 20 questions? Because the dogs need to get out? Because I forgot to
water the plants? Because I left my wallet at home? Because I haven’t been
sleeping well for days and need to rest? Because I have the sinister feeling we
are going to die within just a few minutes? BECAUSE WE ARE GOING TO GET HIT BY
A GIANT TRUCK?!
Suddenly he could remember
everything very clearly. But the moment he did he heard his wife scream out and
saw the truck racing towards them. He knew instantly that it wasn’t an illusion
from his sleep deprived mind. I’m not
crazy, she sees it too! The last feeling he had before everything went
black was one of relief, relieved that he wasn’t as crazy as he thought he was.
Then everything went quiet, even his mind went
silent.
***
