The Sleepwalker

The Sleepwalker

By: Roger Alderman

To this day I am unsure why I have been tasked to witness the evils of this small town, Port St. John Florida. It seems as if I am cursed to only awaken from the empty void of nothingness for no other reason than to hear the tales of depravity that for some reason people choose to share over a quiet meal in an unremarkable roadside diner. Who am I to judge why people do the things they do?

This time I was awoken from my slumber by the arrival of a pair of forty-year-old professionally dressed women, Gail Woods and Tanya Hunter. They had arranged their late afternoon luncheon to discuss the passing of a client of Tanya’s. Robert had been a client of hers for the better part of two years due to “incidents” that he was experiencing during episodes of sleepwalking. 

The delicious scent of the day’s special was stuffed green peppers topped with shredded pepper jack cheese. The food was cooked until the cheese had turned a light brown. This created a wonderfully burnt pungency that only seemed to add to the atmosphere of the small-town diner. The aroma clearly worked its magic on the lunchtime customers, as there was no plate empty of this day special.

The waitress presented menus and eating utensils, “Can I start you off with drinks? While you look over the menus?” Gail and Tanya smiled and took the menus from the kind waitress. They each ordered a sweet ice tea and settled into their booth across from one another. 

“I know we’re not supposed to do this, but I need to talk,” Tanya whispers to not alarm the Diner’s other customers. Gail took Tanya’s hand in hers, “It’s okay to talk to me. Though I would have preferred my office for this discussion, we gotta eat.” Tanya nods at Gail’s statement, “It’s about my client Robert, the sleepwalker.” 

The waitress returned with the condensation covered sweat ice teas in plastic soft drink cups and placed them on the tables' drink coasters. She offered a smile to Gail and Tanya, “Have you decided on what you would like?” Tanya shook her head in a defiant, No. Gail smiled at the waitress and eagerly asked, “Those stuffed peppers look amazing,” as she gestured to an elderly couple eating the lunch special nearby. 

Tanya saw the elderly couple’s plates and asked, “I’ll take the stuffed peppers. They look amazing.” The waitress nodded and smile in understanding. Gail quickly added, “I’ll have the same.” The waitress took the menus and walked away to place the new lunch order.

“Go ahead?” Gail pleads after seeing the tormented form on Tanya’s face in just mentioning her client's name. Tanya nodded and slid a worn leather journal across the table to Gail, as she sipped at her Sweat Ice Tea. Gail seemed reluctant to take the journal at first, but Tanya’s insistent look help persuade her otherwise.  

Gail opened the journal and began to read. The waitress returned with their lunch order. They spread their napkins across their laps and dug into their meal, as Gail started the journey of a fallen man’s words. 

Gail seemed taken back at the very first sentence contained in the volume that read, “I am cursed.” Her training kept her to task and she began to devour the contents of the journal. With each new page, she took another bite of her lunch. 

The following was the story of one man’s descent into the darkness of being cursed by Voodoo. (real or imagined)

I have been into landscaping since I was old enough to use a push mower. It helped keep me too exhausted in my teens to go out and get into trouble. I am the type of person that became addicted to working after that first bit of cash was given to me. After completing a good afternoon’s work. 

The biggest issue with working so hard for me comes in the form of sleeping deeply. I swear, I could probably sleep through a volcanic eruption according to my wife. Not that I ever want to test that theory. 

My wife asked me to get checked out by my doctor to make sure my deep sleeping is not due to some unnoticed illness or something. So, I made the appointment and the doctor ordered a bunch of tests, but everything came back normal. After my last visit with him I left angry and depressed after he told me, “Robert, some people are just deep sleepers. Try not to focus on it so much. You’re healthy as a horse.” 

John, a friend of mine and a fellow landscaper, asked me to help him out with a few clients after that last hurricane. I agreed almost immediately as the clients were close to customers of mine. Everything was going fine until the last client an elderly black woman named Miss. Edna. Her lawn was overgrown like everyone else’s, but the debris was bad. So, we cleared the lot, mowed, and trimmed the property.

When Miss. Edna arrived, she parked quickly and rushed out of her car screaming in hysterics. I ran to her side making sure she was okay, but to my surprise, she slapped me across the face. Her diamond wedding ring cut a gouge across my cheek. 

I stood holding my cheek as blood poured from the wound. “What the fuck!” I demanded from the elderly woman. By this point, her neighbors were watching through their windows or they had joined us on the lawn. “What did you do?” She asked through clenched teeth in her thick Jamaican accent. 

I stood there shaking my head not understanding what I had done. Man, hindsight is always twenty-twenty and if I only knew then what I know now. “You destroyed my husband’s memory tree!” she yelled. I was tempted to explain that I had never been told about the newly planted “Memory Tree.” However, with all the judgmental looks and shaking heads of the growing crowd, I offered apologies.

The apology was not enough for her no matter how heartfelt it was. She slapped me again across the face and spat at the ground. She stormed into her house her hand covered in the blood from my facial wound. Some of the neighbors snickered others left in disgust at what had just occurred. 

At this point, I had enough of all the drama after all I apologized and offered to plant another tree. I couldn’t replant the tree as we feed all the debris through the wood chipper. There was nothing left of the memory tree that was able to be planted. I was sure that offering her the wood chips to her would not help the situation. 

We left Miss. Edna’s and sure enough less than a block away John called. “Dude, what did you do?” he asked. I explained the situation and he sighed loudly, “I forgot to tell you about the Memory Tree for her husband.” I yelled angrily at him so much my helpers became uncomfortable and John apologized to me for not telling me about her property.  

“Poor Guy,” Gail offered as she stopped eating long enough to drink some of her sweet tea and wipe her mouth. “Robert says later that Miss. Edna called him and started talking gibberish,” Tanya flipped several pages forward in the journal and pointed. Gail looked down and read the passage, “Okay, he felt that Miss. Edna put a curse on him for destroying the memory tree?” 

Tanya nodded a vehement “yes” at Gail’s observation. Gail immediately shook her head, “do you know how racist that is? I mean seriously an elderly black woman with a Jamaica accent is also a voodoo priestess?” Gail shook her head in disbelief at the thought. “I understand, but it comes from a small town with limited exposure to other cultures. Robert got it honestly,” Tanya sat back in her seat and looked around at the locals who occupied the other booths. 

Gail chuckled, “My, how absolutely judgmental of you.” “Keep reading he talks about the starting of his sleepwalking after the call form this Miss. Edna,” Tanya gestured to the journal. Gail sighed and flipped forward until Tanya motioned for her to start reading again. 

Becca, my wife, told me over my morning coffee that last night I was sleepwalking again. “What do you mean, again?” I asked. She told me that for the past few nights I had been sleepwalking through the house. I asked her, “Why didn’t you wake me up?” She said she had read somewhere that waking a sleepwalker was very bad. She tried to explain it to me, but to me, it was all just nonsense. 

I went to work and thought about it for the rest of the day. The next morning, sure enough, Becca told me that I was sleepwalking again. I nodded in understanding. What she told me next was very disturbing. Becca showed me a bandage on her right forearm. I immediately asked what happened? and Did I do that?

Becca explained that last night she was awakened by a loud crashing sound like silver wear scattering across a tile floor. She said I was not in bed. She grabbed my old wooden bat from little league and made her way through the house until reaching the kitchen. That is where she found me standing eyes closed holding a large kitchen knife to my wrist. 

Becca pointed and showed me where I had begun to cut myself with the serrated edge of the large kitchen knife. I was floored by the revelation. She explained that even though I was sleepwalking she had to me to fight to take the knife and in exchange, she had been cut across the forearm. She was protecting me and did not deserve any of this.

I called off work and we went to my doctor’s office once again seeking help to stop these nightly episodes. Again, after several tests, we learned nothing. That is when he recommended seeking out psychological help as sometimes there may be a mental reason for these events. I agreed as things were turning violent and becoming more and more dangerous each night.

Gail shook her head at what she had just read and gestured to Tanya, “That is when he became your client?” Tanya sipped at her sweet ice tea while nodding as she held a remorseful expression on her face. Tanya sat her drink down and interlaced her fingers as she rested her arms on the tabletop, “I thought it was a simple case of sleepwalking triggered by his guilt and sense of duty.” “Was it?” Gail asked. “I am not so sure, Gail. Maybe I missed diagnosed his condition altogether.” 

“Why would you think that? You can’t blame yourself for his death. You gave him the tools he obviously didn’t make use of them,” Gail declared defensively. Tanya shook her head gently, No at the thought. “Each appointment was worse than the time before. He was clearly spiraling down and I missed all the signs.” Gail walked around to Tanya’s side of the table and embraced her friend trying to calm her racing thoughts. 

Tanya sobbed as her friend offered to comfort her, “Just don’t know how I missed the signs?” “He was clearly hiding them from both you and his wife. I bet if we continue to read. He will more than likely admit to it.” Gail flipped a few pages past where she had left off in her previous reading. 

It’s like the whole world is closing in around me. Choking me trying to strangle the life from me every day the noose seems to tighten that she put around my neck. The majority of my clients canceled our contracts due to the confrontation between Miss Edna and I… That was over six weeks ago now? 

Last Night in my Dream… Nightmare, I was being chased through a forest by an army of shadow people. The forest dead-ended at a cliff overlooking the crashing waves of the ocean below. As the shadow people closed I knew I needed to jump. So, I got ready to leap, but at the last second, I heard someone call my name. I turned around and was surprised to see Miss Edna standing there in weird and frightening face paint. I was terrified and when I started to speak she pushed me back off the cliff.

I was awoken by Becca screaming my name and immediately lost my balance. I fell from the roof above our front door and landed on the porch. I almost broke my ankle but was sent home with a severe strain and a torn ligament. I hope Dr. Hunter will see me on such short notice. This sleepwalking has to stop before I kill myself. 

No one believes, me not my Becca or Dr. Hunter. I have continued to plead with both. They both are unconvinced about the curse Miss. Edna put on me almost three weeks ago. Everything is falling apart around me I tell you everything I touch turns to shit.

I have decided against my wife and the doctor’s opinions to go and once again try a to smooth things over with Miss Edna. She has to understand I did not mean anything against her or her family when I accidentally cut down the Memory Tree. Pray that she is understanding by this point in time. 

Gail looks up from the journal and sees the tears still streaming down the cheeks of Tanya, “was this?” Tanya wiped the tears and her nose with a napkin, “yeah, that was his last entry in the journal before they found him.” Gail lowered her head and embraced her dearest friend again, “I’m so sorry.” Tanya planted her face into the chest of her friend, as other customers attention shifted to the crying woman in the booth.

“They found him in the kitchen of his home. He had open slit his arms with a kitchen knife from elbow to wrist.” Tanya exhaled loudly. She blew her nose and continued, “But he had also stabbed Becca to death in their bedroom.” “Oh My God, honey, I’m so sorry,” Gail gasped. 

“That’s not the worst part though,” Tanya continued. A puzzled look filled Gail’s face, “What do you mean?” The color left Tanya’s face as she looked into Gail’s eyes, “I went to tell Miss Edna to ask her to forgive Robert, as he had passed. But before I could say anything she slapped me and her ring cut open my check. Then she spat on me and began screaming at me.” “Crazy old bitch!” Gail declared angrily. 

Tanya shook her head as her mascara continued to mix with her tears marking her face with long black stains running the length of her face. “What’s wrong, Tanya?” Gail asked. “My husband has caught me sleepwalking,” Tanya cried out.