Flash Entries

Fade To Black (ID# 1788158)

Fade to Black

A hand grabbed my forehead and held me tight against the headrest. A cold blade pressed against my neck. He’s drawing it across the base of my neck. He must have been crouched in the backseat of the car. Fear, I taste fear. Eyes, I see his piercing green eyes in the mirror. Fade to black…. Huh, is that a light? My feet seem to know where I’m going. I wish I did. Where did the black go? Where’s my pocketbook? It’s so bright, I need my sunglasses.

“Alexandra.”

“What? Who said that?”

“Alexandra!”

“Yes,” interesting, I’m not talking but I hear my voice.

“Alexandra, you have to go back. It’s not your time.”

“Geez, Dad, you always said I’d be late.” Wait a minute, my dad can’t be here. “Where am I?”

“Alexandra, you have to fight, you have to go back,” she sensed the urgency in his voice.

“But Dad, I just got here.”

“You have to go back and finish.”



“Dag gum lights. Why doesn’t someone cut off those bright lights?” I’m so confused, what’s happening, everything is swirling around me. I try to lift my arm. I want to shield my eyes; hands grab my arm and push it back down. Heavy, I feel so heavy, fade to black.

“Ms. Hawkins, can you hear me? If you can hear me, squeeze my fingers.”
I try to squeeze something. My arms, my hands so heavy, everything hurts. Fade to black.

Birds, do I hear birds? Come on eyes, open. Well, maybe not, I’m so tired.

“Alexandra, you have to wake up. You have to go back and finish.”

“Geez Dad, can’t a girl catch up on her sleep.”

“Your work is too important. Remember how I used to get you out of bed when you were little?”

“I’m getting up!”



My eyes fluttered open. Thank goodness, no bright lights. “Thirsty.” A straw magically appeared then the yelling started. I know that voice. I wish I could put a name to it. The cool liquid felt delightful in my mouth. I know the face, where do I know you from? Man, my eyelids don’t want to stay open. But if I go back to sleep that wonderful water is going to get dumped on me. Dad told me so.

“Toothpicks, please.”

“What?”

“Need to prop eyelids open.” I tried to smile, who knows what that looked like.

“Oh, so you have a sense of humor, glad to see you’ve decided to come back to us. Don’t push yourself too hard, you lost a lot of blood. You need to rest.”

“How?”

A stampede charged into the room, well four people.

“I’m Dr. Littlejohn, do you remember anything that happened to you?”

“No.”

Little lights flash in my eyes, enough with the lights already. His hands are warm and amazingly soft on my forehead. On the other side of the bed, a nurse shoves a thermometer under my tongue, and feels for my pulse. Can I please, fade to black? I wait, I guess the answer to that is no.

Chirping, chattering talking about my vital statistics, “You all can hush now. Oh, did I say that out loud?” I see I still have no mouth filter, oh well.

“Just a few more easy tests, we’ll notify the police that you’re awake. Then you’ll appreciate our little interruptions,” Dr. Littlejohn quipped.

“Great, another smarty pants in the room.”

My eyelids are getting so heavy, I want to go back to sleep.

“Alexandra, we’ll be back in the morning. The buzzer is right here if you need anything.”

“OK.” Fade to black…



Flashes of light, I’m walking to the car. The key slides in to the lock, turn, click, I get in. Pump the gas twice, quirky car, put the key in and turn, grrrrrr, didn’t catch. Try again. Pump twice, turn, purr, there she goes. I pat the dash board, “Good girl, you’ll make it to 200,000 miles yet.” Reach for the seat belt, pull it over, click. A hand grabs my head, my throat, warm liquid flowing down over my chest.

I wake up screaming, sitting bolt upright in the bed, cold sweat running down my back, my hand grasping at my throat. Shaken, shivering, eyes wide open, the stampede returns, all four of them, and a uniformed police officer in the lead, his hand resting on his revolver, the snaps undone, his eyes survey the room before he starts to relax.



“Are you alright ma’am?”

I nod. My breathing is short and shallow; adrenaline is pumping through my veins. “I’m fine,” I lied, terrified was more like it.

The doctor and nurses take their positions, checking me out, once again.

“I’ll be outside the door. Call me if you need me.”

“OK,” as the nurses push me back onto the bed, the bullies, he was kind of cute.

“I’ve got to get up. I’ve got to finish.” I try to push myself back up, and actually make it to my elbow, before the exhaustion hits and I fall back on the bed.

Dr. Littlejohn starts on a series of mundane questions; thank goodness they only need short answers. Then he catches me, “Tell me about the dream you just had. What did you remember?”

“Someone was in my car; they grabbed me and apparently tried to kill me.”

“Pretty close to what happened. The detective that’s been working your case is on the way to talk to you. Do you feel up to it?”

“I have to. Its part of what I have to finish.” Now where did that come from? Interesting, what was I working on? Oh yes. We were building the Hutch case. All of the pieces were coming into place. We had motive, we had the evidence, and most of all we had the witnesses, of which I was one. The case was solid, a slam dunk to throw Hutch in jail for three life times and maybe if everything went right, he’d get the punishment he deserved. Only thing was, at his arraignment, the judge set his bail really low, did he have the time to...

Jimmy threw the door open. Man, it was good to see him, even if he did look like he’d seen a ghost, which made me think, what did I look like?

The nurses took their leave while Dr. Littlejohn cautioned Jimmy, “Not too many questions, she’s still pretty weak, and needs lots of rest. Small sessions of questions, and you can only come in three times during the day.” He started to the door, turned back to look at
Jimmy, “Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” The door closed and Jimmy came over to the bed. “How do you feel?”

“Confused, pieces are starting to fall into place, but there are still a lot of holes.”

“Tell me what you remember.”

I repeated the facts from the dream. "Everything was so crystal clear. The baseball cap, the gloved hand, the green eyes, and the smile- he was enjoying it. He was watching my expression in the rear view mirror, just like I was watching him.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Green eyes, gold front tooth, you know who it was, Hutch himself. He was just taking care of business.”

“Lexie, you’re sure? Then we've got him, dead to rights! I'll never understand how that judge bonded him out with his record."

"You were the first on his list. Chambers was next. He didn’t make it. There wasn’t any evidence left to tie Hutch to his murder. Alders was next. You are the only witness left. We got a continuance hoping that you’d wake up and be able to testify. I notified the judge that you’d come to. As soon as you get clearance from the doc, the case is back on."

“Good. I have to finish this.”




Well, I finished it. I sat through multiple cross examinations. The evidence and testimony was enough. Thankfully, the jury found him guilty, murder in the first degree, four times over.

I made it through the sentencing hearings; I presented impassioned pleas before the court.

I sat three rows behind the man that had slaughtered that poor family, my Dad, and my friends that were about to testify against him. My eyes bored holes into the back of his head, my fingers danced across the scar he’d given me.

When the judge slammed the hammer down after giving him the death penalty, I sat down and cried. Jimmy looked at me incredulously, like I should be jumping with joy. All I felt was relief, fleeting as it was.

Then the appeals started and the process kept going on for years. Every appearance Hutch made in court. I was there. I had to make sure the sentence was carried out. I had to finish this.



The room was dark; curtains blocked the view to another room. When the curtains were pulled open, Hutch was prone on the table, his arms stretched out; it made me think of Christ on the cross. Isn’t it odd to think of him here? The IVs were hooked into Hutch’s arm. Three men stood toward the back of that room. I guess it was the warden that asked if he had any last statements. He looked toward the gallery, “I should have killed you too.”

“Too bad, so sad, I was sent back to finish this, and I did.” It’s a wonder I didn’t stick out my tongue and give him a good old raspberry.

He kept staring at me, mumbling over and over that “She should have died. She should have died.” He never took his eyes off of me. Even when they pronounced him, his eyes kept staring at me.


In less than twenty minutes it was all over and I was heading back to my car. I slipped the key into the lock, turned, felt the click and opened the door. Threw in my pocketbook, and slid in. Pumped twice, turned the key, hey it caught the first time. “Way to go, girl,” I exclaimed as I patted the dashboard. Fade to black.



The passenger side door opened. Bright light flooded into the car. Dad climbed in smiling, shoot it was better than that, he was beaming.

“Now, baby girl, that’s a job well done. I wish you could have seen the look on his face when he saw me, the Samson family, Chambers and Alders. There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in him, all that pent up anger. It was radiating out from him. Then he caught a look at his escorts that were unstrapping him from the table. Oh, my, you would have thought he was going to climb back into his skin and wake back up." Dad chuckled that old familiar laugh of his.

With both of my hands on the steering wheel, I looked over at my Dad, “Now what?”

“Let’s go home, baby girl, let’s go home. Your Mom is all excited about you coming and she’s been preparing for days."


Fade into the light.


1849 wc