They'd haunted my dreams for the past year. Coming for my family. The shadowmen. I saw myself in bed, and I heard their silence. I looked out and I saw their absence in the fog. And I knew that anything they touched became dead and silent, like them. My children! I had to protect them! Shadowmen could not stand the light. I opened my door and ran down the hall. But the hall went on forever. I ran and ran. And suddenly, my daughter's door! I threw it open ... but I had misplaced my flashlight. My daughter was in bed, silent. Forever. They got her. And my son was too far away.
I opened my eyes, and saw it was morning. It was just a dream! Thank goodness.
"I had that dream again!" I said.
"Eat your eggs, Agnes" said Don. Scrambled eggs on a plate. He doesn't believe me, he's tired of it. "You have that dream every night," he said.
My son was washing dishes. "Where's Dorothy?" I asked, trying not to appear worried.
"Here Ma," said Dorothy in her bathrobe. Dorothy opened the refrigerator, looking for a yogurt.
"Oh thank goodness. They got you in my dream. I didn't have my flashlight."
"I'm safe, Ma," she said.
I looked out the window. It was a cool fall morning. Bright sun, crisp orange-brown leaves lining their street, the sidewalk edged with huge old oaks. White picket suburban fences. Neighbors walking their dogs. I fetched a fork and sat down at the table to eat my eggs.
Don had the Saturday paper open, doing the crossword puzzle. "We're low on milk," he said, peering over the edge.
"Don't tell me what to do," I scolded him. "I have so much to do. The laundry, the mail. Oh I need cabbage too. I could go," I caught myself, "oh, no, I have to do the laundry first." I sighed. "I do all the work around here. We're out of plastic bags too."
"No we're OK," said Don, taking a bag out of a box of yard waste bags.
"That not a plastic bag," I told him.
"You're right, Agnes," said Don, holding up the plastic bag and nodding. "This isn't a plastic bag."
"Oh you know ... it's not a PROPER plastic bag," I said. I scanned the back of the newspaper ads. $1.49 for apples! "Did you see they want $1.49 for apples!" I said. "They are so greedy nowadays. What do they think they can get away with?"
I startled awake. I had dreamed of the shadowmen again. But now it was dark, and even my electric clock was out. Last night had been windy, with hazy clouds hiding the moon. But now everything was silent and dark. I looked out the window. No streetlights. No sound.
"The shadowmen!" I said under my breath. I got up in my nightgown, put on my bathrobe and glasses and bunny slippers, grabbed my two maglights, and crept out. I checked the rooms of my son and daughter. They were in bed, breathing loudly, the lucky fools.
Opening the front door, I saw the world was quiet and still. Sharp stars were overhead in the moonlit sky, but fog was rolling down the street. I knew that with it came the shadowmen. Coming for my family. I walked out to the middle of the street. Leaves crunched familiarly under my slippers.
I stood there, in my nightgown, facing the coming spectre. Whisps of fog laced through the air, hiding the stars, hiding the trees, hiding the neighbors' houses, approaching. Well this is it, I thought. The fog rolled forward, reaching me. This is how they take us. Unawares.
But not me.
"Eeeeeey-YAH!" I hollered, turning on my maglights on high, narrow beam. Their thin beams lit up the fog, slashing through the night. I whipped them forward, and quickly all around, right, left, and up. I felt the non-sound. The silent shrieking of the fleeing shadowmen. Normal night flowed in to fill their absence. "WAH!" I yelled. "Yah Yah YAH! Take THAT you foul fiends!!!"
Lanterns turned on in my house, and the in neighbors' houses. Voices.
"Agnes?" called Don. "What are you doing?"
"Saving your butts!" I cried. "Eeey-YAH!" I leapt. My beams slashed the fog as I rapidly spun and cut away at the night.
"Is Ma OK?" asked Dorothy.
"She is what she is," said Don. He sighed. "It could be worse. I've seen worse. Hell I'll probably be worse myself someday."
I stood in crane position, alert, squinting, my maglights beams slowly scanning the fog. Nobody believed me. But that was OK. The shadowmen will not get me, or my family, or my neighborhood. I am their protector, and I am mighty. I am Agnes, Bearer of the Light.
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts, "Everyone said you were crazy. But now its happened. The dream you have been reliving every night for the past year has become reality. As impending doom approaches you are the only one who knows what must be done to prevent it."