Night Terrors by Mark Lukens

moment. She could tell that her aunt didn’t believe her, and for a moment she wished her aunt was here with her. Her aunt was the only person in the world who really knew her.
    “I heard about the latest murder down there in Tampa,” Aunt Katie finally said. It was the real reason for the phone call, Tara knew. “All the way up here in Boston, it’s big news. They’re calling him a serial killer. Killed three people in two nights.”
    “Yeah, it’s kind of big news down here,” Tara said, and then regretted it, fearing it sounded sarcastic.
    “I’m just worried about you,” her aunt said.
    “I’m fine,” Tara answered. “Got my doors locked. Baseball bats in every room.”
    “Very funny,” Aunt Katie said and laughed.
    No, Tara wanted to say; it’s the truth – I have baseball bats stashed around my apartment. But she didn’t. She could tell that her aunt wanted to say more, she could sense that something was on her mind. But her Aunt Katie wasn’t divulging anything.
    They made some more small-talk. Yes, everything was going well with Tara’s work. No, Tara hadn’t found a boyfriend yet. Not even close. She sure wasn’t going to tell her about Lorie’s plan to hook her up with the next door neighbor using a bag of sugar as the bait.
    Tara got off the phone with her aunt and went back to the couch and stretched out on it. She plucked Agent Woods’ business card off of the coffee table and stared at it for a moment. Agent Woods seemed like a hard and competent man, but she had seen something vulnerable in his dark eyes for a moment when he asked for her help.
    She set the card down on her stomach and closed her eyes.
    She just needed to close her eyes for a few minutes. She was so tired.
    Moments later she was asleep. At first she didn’t dream anything.
    But then the dreams came.
2.
    Aunt Katie hung up the phone and she walked to the kitchen table where she’d left a photo album wide open. She flipped back towards the front of the book, to photos of Tara when she was a baby. She turned a page, crinkling the plastic a little that covered the pages. She lingered on a photo of Tara’s mom and dad when they were younger, when Tara was little. She touched the photo of Tara’s mother with her finger. Katie’s sister. God, she missed her so much.
    Katie had been keeping a secret from Tara for years now. She never wanted to tell her, she was afraid it would destroy her, but now Tara needed to know the truth.
    She closed the photo album with a snap and sat at the small kitchen table in her tiny Boston apartment for a long moment. She stared at her cluttered kitchen counters as her mind lingered on the murders down in Tampa.
    It was happening again.
    Katie had always believed that she had a touch of psychic ability – but nothing as powerful as Tara’s abilities, not even close. She believed that everyone had a sixth sense whether they knew it or not, whether they chose to believe it or not. She believed that people had “gut feelings” in their lives, a voice whispering at the back of their mind to not go to work that day, or not to go down a certain road, or to buy a lottery ticket. A lot of times people ignored these feelings and then later they knew that they should’ve listened to that voice in their head.
    Maybe it was a part of a collective unconscious that all humans shared. Katie had heard that theory from somewhere before.
    Who knew?
    Right now she had a voice whispering to her, a gut feeling tugging at her, and she didn’t think she should ignore it.
    She got up and paced around her cramped apartment. She could hear the traffic of Boston outside: blaring horns, skidding tires, someone yelling at someone else. She had followed her latest husband up here and it hadn’t worked out. Maybe it was time to pack a bag and get out of this city for a little while.
    It was time to take a trip to Florida.
    It was time to see Tara and tell her the truth. And what she had to tell her, she couldn’t