BFF

   The phone rang and awoke Mike from a deep sleep. He glanced at the alarm clock and could see it was 4 in the morning, thinking to him self who the hell would call this early? He found his cell phone in the dimly lit room and answered it. He could hear the voice crying on the other end saying, can you come pick me up? He recognized the voice on the other end and it was one he had not heard in a long time, it was the voice of his BFF Pam. He blurted into the phone were are you? are you OK?. Pam replied I am at the Four Corners Bar and I need a ride the battery on my phone is almost dead. Again he asked if she was OK she just said come get me please I will tell you everything when you get here and the phone went dead.

   Mike jumped out of bed and dressed as fast as he could throwing on what ever was laying on the floor and ran outside to get in his car. As he drove the 6 miles to the Bar he wondered what was going on, he was hoping it was nothing serious. He could not help but be worried because of the tone in her voice, he had never heard her sound so upset. He was also wondered why she called him and not her boyfriend Ben. Mike and Pam had been friends for 14 years they had met when they both were 18 while doing their AIT Army training at Fort Dix NJ and had become fast friends and after had ended up stationed on the same post in Germany. They had been almost inseparable until Pam met Ben three years ago, Ben was not crazy about their close relationship and that was causing a rift so to keep Ben happy they started seeing less and less of each other until they just stopped all together. 

   Rain started coming down hard and made it almost impossible to see the road in front of him as Mike was driving as fast as he could. It seemed to Mike like it was taking forever to get to the destination. Finally in the distance he could see the lights from the sign that hung above the bar and in the dim light given off by the sign he could see a silhouette standing in the rain. Mike pulled in to see Pam standing in the parking lot drenched and shivering and she smiled as he pulled up next to her. Mike swung open the door to let Pam in the car and as he opened the door the rain abruptly stopped and he rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief because the parking lot was suddenly dry and showed no signs that it had been raining not even a puddle. The parking lot was empty Pam had just vanished in thin air. He got out of the car looking in every direction yelling her name but she was no where to be found. He could not make sense of what he was seeing before him knowing it had been poring down rain just moment ago and now the parking area was dry as a bone.  The parking lot suddenly turned to sand and the bar melted away all he could see for miles was sand and he could feel the hot sun beating down on him. He looked at his clothing and it had turned red.

    Mike threw back the covers and sprang  out of bed drenched in sweat and reached for his cell phone. As he looked at the phone once again the realization hit him as it had night after night for many months,  that the phone had not rang and there was no call from Pam. The call from Pam was just in his reacquiring nightmare that haunted him night after night. Mike could feel the tears well up and soon burst forth and he fell sobbing uncontrollably balling up in a fetal position on the floor. And then the truth the real the now would hit him as it would night after night he could feel it in the pit of his stomach making him feel like he would throw up. 

   Pam did not call could not call and would never call again. Then the flashback would play like a movie in his brain blurring the lines of what was real and what was in his mind. The movie would play in his mind and the sound would be turned up so loud it hurt his ears. The movie in his mind would started as it always did Pam setting behind the wheel of the supply vehicle and she was laughing at a joke Mike had told. Suddenly a loud BANG! that echoed inside the vehicle and Mike could feel something warm on his face, he reached with his hand to touch his face and as he pulled his hand back he could see his hand was covered with something red.

   He was stunned that he was laying on his back on the ground and as he panned his eyes over to his left he could see a small pile of twisted metal and smoke pouring from a large hole in the road.  He tried to stand up, and as he did he could feel a sharp lightning bolt of pain shoot up his back. As he lay there in pain he started to realize what had just happened he started calling out Pam's name but could not see her and could not hear her voice calling back. Soon he felt himself being lifted and heard voices saying you will be OK just stay calm. His helmet was being removed and his head fell to the left and that's when he saw Pam's twisted mangled body laying in the sand. He yelled at the people helping him (take care of Pam) but it seemed his voice fell on deaf ears. as they loaded him in to the truck his last memory before he slipped into unconsciousness was Pam's lifeless twisted body laying in the sand.

   He would awake with a start in a hospital bed and his first thought was he hoped it was a bad dream, a cruel nightmare he could awaken from soon. He could not shake the image from his mind it was burned there like a hot ash burns into the carpet and even after it is extinguished it leaves a dark black melted area behind.  A nurse came into the room and was happy to see him awake and smiled. He asked about Pam and was met with a blank stare from the nurse as if she was trying to think of what to say. It hit him then that it was not a dream and he was not going to wake up and find everything back to the way it was. 
   After being released from the hospital and being sent home, he tried to get back to living the life he knew before. Try as he might nothing seemed real to him he moved he ate he worked but it all seemed like it was happening to someone else and he was being dragged along for the ride. He had an emptiness, a large emotional void like he had never felt before and he felt nothing. Mike slept less and less because every night he would have that same dream of the ringing phone and his mad dash to reach Pam and save her from what ever it was that made her call. And every time he would find himself standing in the desert alone and covered in something red only to awake drenched in sweat and crying in a ball on the floor.