The drive home felt like a dream.

  Maybe Scott was right. Maybe the insomnia was getting to him.

  There was no way it could have been real.

  The sight of that maniac striding toward him—the knife gripped in his hand, blood dripping from his wounds—was too vivid to dismiss. The image was burned into his mind, blocking out all else.

  A relentless barrage of unwanted thoughts rushed through his head. Oblivious to the traffic flowing past him, he crawled along in the slow lane, trying to shake off the last traces of the seemingly insane sequence of events.

  By the time he pulled into the driveway, he had almost convinced himself it was nothing more than his imagination. Perhaps his brain was compensating for the lack of sleep by dreaming while he was awake.

  But a cold ball of fear had taken root in his chest, and he couldn’t shake it loose.

  Tara greeted him at the door, brushing against his leg before darting into the kitchen.

  Patrick followed and scooped cat food into her bowl. He scratched behind her ears, then put his own dinner into the microwave.

  When it was hot enough, he peeled back the plastic and sat in silence at the small kitchen table, eating straight from the container.

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  “I can’t help it. It’s all going back.”

  The words clung to him. They made no sense, yet filled him with dread.

  He needed a distraction.

  The television flickered, the image jumping up and down as bursts of static hissed from the speakers. He flipped through the channels, but every station was the same.

  He reached behind the TV to check the cables. Everything was connected.

  Desperate, he grabbed a DVD from his collection and sat back.

  In the darkened room, images flashed across the screen with a hypnotic rhythm, but his mind wasn’t there. The words replayed over and over.

  “I can’t help it.”

  The scene replayed in his mind.

  “It’s all going back.”

  The clock read 10:30.

  He thought about sleeping, then felt his soul recoil from the promise of disappointment. The idea of falling asleep only to wake two or three hours later felt like a physical ache.

  He picked out another DVD.

  So he sat back and watched Michael J. Fox try to get back to the future for the hundredth time, postponing the disappointment of sleeplessness.

  When the credits rolled, he considered putting in another movie.

  Why bother even trying to sleep?

  Then, from some stubbornly hopeful corner of his mind, the answer came.

  Because tonight might be different. Tonight, I might sleep.

  He turned off the TV and headed to the bedroom.

  In the darkness, he stared at the ceiling.

  Close your eyes, he told himself.

  He rolled onto his side and obeyed.

  The image of the man advancing toward him filled his mind. With effort, he pushed it aside.

  Tara jumped onto the bed and padded across him to curl up at her usual spot near the foot.

  He didn’t open his eyes.

  Sleep, damn you.

  Sleep would come—it always did. It just never stayed long.

  Gradually, he drifted. Thoughts slipped from words into images, then into feeling, the transition so subtle he didn’t notice it happening.

  The last clear thought came just before he slipped under.

  Don’t wake up.

  Please don’t wake up.

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