The Dream

Rated 13+ for violence, disturbing content, and brief mild language|


Dr. Thomas Drayton sat bolt upright in his bed, sweat soaking his white t-shirt and sheets. He was tired beyond belief yet unable to return to sleep. Three-thirty A.M. read the glowing red digits of his Timex alarm clock. Still four hours ‘till I have to get up, he thought, frustrated. His wife Suzie was sleeping peacefully beside him, blissfully lost in her dreams. Drayton had just awakened from an astonishingly vivid dream. For two hours he sat, anxious and frightened, body trembling, before he finally drifted uneasily back into a light, uneasy sleep.

Drayton awoke to the buzzing of his alarm clock, instantly alert. This morning, he was to operate on a patient named Jim Crachon, whose spinal cord had been moderately damaged in an automobile crash the day before. He ate breakfast, took a shower, and brushed his teeth while a terrible feeling sunk into his stomach. He had been nervous prior to operations before, especially when he had first become a surgeon nearly twenty years ago. But what he was feeling now was more than nervousness. He had a premonition that something was going to go terribly wrong.

Dr. Drayton discovered his ability a few years back. He had begun to experience dreams relating to upcoming operations that played like movies in his head with amazing realism. When these dreams started robbing him of sleep, he saw a psychiatrist, who described them as “just normal feelings of anxiety.” Drayton highly doubted this; he had been the leading spinal surgeon at the High Falls Hospital for years, and had not suffered from anxiety in a long time.

He had had probably thirty or thirty-five of these dreams since his ability set in; he still remembers the first dream with lucidity. It was the night before a scheduled operation on a woman of forty-five with a very serious cord injury. Her survival chances were estimated at less than one percent; that’s why it was a surprise to Drayton that he dreamed that the operation was successful. He nearly cried out in joy and astonishment when he heard news that the patient was on the road to discharge two days later. But that was not the only dream. There were others—and they were all the same. Dr. Thomas Drayton’s dreams predicted the outcome of future operations.

He thought about postponing the operation, just going back to bed for a few hours; enough to satisfy his body's yearning for sleep. He would wait for his wife to wake, and then they would sit on the couch in front of the TV and just relax. They would maybe even go out to dinner later that day, and then they would come back home and sink into bed. As much as he wanted to, Drayton couldn’t bring himself to do that. He was held to the status of being reliable and dedicated to his work. If he missed an operation, he would surely lose his job and his reputation. How would he be able to support Suzie, who didn’t work, and how could he support their daughter? And could there be a possibility that the nightmare was not a prediction but just a normal, ordinary dream?

With dread, he started the car, and pulled out of the garage. Concentrate, damn it! he told himself once on the road. Drayton’s dream was busying the circuits of his mind, and he could not focus his attention on the road. The double-yellow line was just a blur, traffic lights merely colorful decorations. How can this be? he thought, horrified by the dream. I’m a doctor, not a murderer.

In the hospital, Dr. Drayton’s fear and dread were beyond intense; they were near paralyzing. He remembered the TV news footage he had seen of Jim Crachon being rescued by paramedics. The plump and balding man was lifted out of the smashed car and placed into a stretcher, barely responding and conscious. His clothing and hair were ruined by thick drying blood. He then recalled how much sympathy he felt for the poor man, who had suffered such an injury due to a drunk driver—no fault of his own. I have to help this man, this dream must be wrong. Nevertheless, the nightmare still played vividly in his mind:

The dream began with him standing over the operating table, the man being fed a constant supply of anesthesia, the overhead fluorescent lights giving his naked back a dull, sickly tone. He grabbed the scalpel to make an incision, trying to take extreme care to avoid more damage to the injured cord. In a sudden wave of anger and passion, Dr. Thomas Drayton lifted the scalpel high above his head and brought it down as hard as he could into Jim Crachon’s back. Blood spurted like a geyser, splattering him and the lights above the table as the man’s life came to an end. Dr. Drayton was laughing, and the anesthesiologist ran out of the room, wide-eyed with his hands over his mouth. The nurse’s eyes rolled towards the back of her head as she fainted onto the hard floor. Drayton was delighted at his precision: he had jabbed the scalpel directly into the injury site. Crachon felt no pain; he did not even know that his end had come. That was when the doctor had woken up.

In the hospital, Drayton finished his coffee and crunched the Styrofoam cup in his hand. He doubted the caffeine would do much good. His entire body was tense and his mind was racing madly as he dressed into his surgical clothes. Could it be possible that he would truly murder a man? Then again, what were the chances of his uncanny power failing him for the first time in years? He walked into the operating room praying for God to save his soul.

“You look terrible,” the nurse commented immediately. Sure as hell I do. His skin was ghostly pale and covered in sweat; his hands trembled without cease. “Are you all right?” she asked, truly concerned.

“I’m a little nervous, that’s all,” replied Dr. Drayton. He couldn’t tell Nurse Walling about his ability and the dream. She wouldn’t believe a word of it. She would probably insist that Dr. Drayton get some rest and some professional help, and that another surgeon be assigned to the operation, despite the fact that he was the most experienced when it came to spinal injuries.

“Just try to concentrate, okay.”

“What’s that you’re saying?” asked Jim Crachon, still not very aware of his surroundings.

“We’re going to put you to sleep now, okay?” said the anesthesiologist, who had scarcely taken notice of the tension and worry present in the room. “Just count to thirty.” He administered the dose with accuracy. Crachon did not even get to twenty.

Well, here it goes, thought Dr. Drayton. He could scarcely control his hands. He felt as if some invisible force, the force of fate, he thought with dread, was taking control over his entire body as he grabbed the scalpel and held it high above his head. Crachon’s body suddenly took on a malicious and evil look and the room became filled with ominous energy. The harsh white of the fluorescents became a dark grayish-purple color that throbbed and pulsed with light. Drayton prepared to stab the life out of the wretched man but a firm hand grabbed his wrist.

“What are you doing?” asked the anesthesiologist, alarmed.

With tremendous effort, fighting to regain control of himself, Dr. Drayton brought his arm down, took a few labored breaths, and waited as the room slowly began to return to its usual appearance. “Something just came over me,” he replied as casually as possible and then prepared to make an incision. He felt more terrified than he had ever felt in his life.

“Careful!” warned Nurse Walling, without effect.

In his panic, Dr. Drayton’s hand slipped. God, no! He made the incision sloppily, despite his desperate attempts to concentrate. The nurse gasped in terror and the anesthesiologist stared open-mouthed first at the surgeon and then at the monitors next to the operating table. Jim Crachon’s breathing stopped and the pulsing line on the heart monitor went flat. His spinal cord had been severed by the flawed incision of experienced surgeon Thomas Drayton.