10 Aug I Dreamed of Digging

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 1 Comment

📅 Published on August 10, 2020

“I Dreamed of Digging”

Written by William Dalphin
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 6 minutes

Rating: 9.14/10. From 14 votes.

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I remember each dream quite vividly. They were the kind you have where everything seems so real that when you wake up, you struggle to differentiate between the waking world and the dream world.

The first night, I woke up and the sun had already risen. I slid out of bed, making sure not to wake my sleeping wife Abigail, slipped into my shoes without bothering to tie the laces, and went outside. It was no longer winter. Summer had come, and the trees were alive with green leaves. The air smelled fresh and warm.

Still without the sense that this was a dream, I walked around the house to the back yard. The peonies Abigail had planted along the fence were in bloom. I admired them for a moment, trying to figure out why I had come outside to begin with.

“Looking for something?”

I looked up to see Travis Pollard, my neighbor, watching from his yard with a smile. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, and my brain finally accepted that it truly must be the beginning of summer.

“I don’t know,” I told him.

His smile quickly faded. “Your wife.” He said grimly.

“My wife?”

He lifted a shovel over the fence and dropped it at my feet. “Better get digging.”

Confused, I picked up the shovel. “Why?”

Travis nodded, indicating the yard behind me. “Winter will be here soon.”

I looked at the soft, green grass. “But… it’s already winter.” Nevertheless, I picked up the shovel and felt its handle, solid and firm in my hands. Looking back to the fence, Travis had disappeared. I was still standing there, holding the shovel, trying to make sense of his words when I woke gently from the dream.

To my relief, Abigail lay beside me in bed. I could hear her soft breathing, but to ease my worries I gently touched her, feeling her pulse. She was warm, so I snuggled up against her and drifted back to a dreamless sleep until my alarm woke me.

I had actually forgotten about the dream from the previous evening when I awoke to find the sun up again, warm and inviting. As before, I crept out of bed, pulled on my shoes, and went outside.

Travis was on his side of the fence, busying himself, when I returned to the back yard. I walked over to him in a haze, slowly recollecting what had happened the last time. He looked up as I approached and smiled at me.

“Looking for something?” He asked.

I stared at him as the words found their way onto my tongue. “My… wife?”

He nodded, his smile vanishing again. He tossed the shovel over the fence, narrowly missing striking me with the handle.

“Better get digging.”

“Winter will be here soon,” I said.

Robotically, I picked up the shovel and walked to the middle of the yard. I felt the earth yield as I dug in, pounding the tool into the ground with my foot and working free a clump of dirt. Within minutes, I had dug a fairly small hole. I looked over to the fence, but once again Travis was gone.

I awoke to the real world peacefully, confused as to how I had gotten back into bed. My hands still felt like they had the shovel in them. As before, I rolled over and touched my wife, felt her presence, confirmed her heartbeat, then fell back asleep pressed against her until my alarm went off.

As you can imagine, this dream made me really worried. Was it a premonition? Was something wrong with my wife?

That morning, I asked her if she had a doctor’s appointment coming up.

“No, why?” she replied.

I was afraid she’d think I was silly for suggesting she schedule one, so I said nothing.

Outside, most of the snow was melted, but the ground was still crunchy and hard. Melted drifts had refrozen into slick piles of ice. I walked around the yard, inspecting it, but nothing seemed out of the norm. I was spooking myself, that’s all. The cream was just a dream. That’s all any dream is.

The following nights, the hole I had dug the night before remained, growing ever wider as I went through the paces of repeating my performance. Travis would toss me his shovel, I would pick it up and go to the middle of the yard where the hole was, and dig it deeper and wider. Deep enough and wide enough to lie down in. Deep enough and wide enough to bury someone in. I could see the pattern, and it frightened me. Somewhere in that hole was Abigail. I had gotten up, left her in bed, but now she was waiting for me to find her at the bottom of the hole.

Days went by. Weeks. The hole got so big that I had to climb down into it. I’d always climb out and inspect it before the world seemed to fade into blackness and I’d wake up to find myself beside Abigail in my bed, checking my hands and fingernails for signs of dirt. Every night, I’d check on her, hug her to me, frightened for what the dreams meant.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. As we sat eating breakfast, I opened up, confessing to her my fears. I told her of the dream, of the hole, and of Travis’s words.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Tonight, when we go to bed, I’ll hold your hand. You’ll feel me holding your hand when you go to sleep, and you’ll know I’m still here in bed when you get up.”

“We can try it.”

So we did. That night, I lay next to her and she held my hand tightly. I was a little afraid that she’d fall asleep first, or that one of us would roll over, but I distinctly remember suddenly waking up and her hand was still in mine.

The sun was shining through the bedroom window, reflecting off the shay dresser mirror. Abigail lay beside me, her skin glowing, and as I looked she opened her eyes and smiled at me. I breathed a sigh of relief. It truly was summer. Winter was long ago, and the nightmares I’d been having months ago had fled as quickly as they had come.

We rose from bed. Abigail put on her robe, and I slipped into my shoes. Together, we walked outside to enjoy the beautiful new morning. There in the back yard was the hole. Of course, it was there… I had been digging it for weeks. It was deep and dark, and still not finished. I still had to keep digging, to find…

I turned and looked. Abigail looked back at me. “I’m still here,” she said.

Travis appeared by the fence. “Looking for something?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I kept my eyes on Abigail. She smiled back and winked.

“What’s with the pit?” Travis nodded toward the hole.

I looked down into the darkness. A glimmer of something shining struck my eye. I squinted, trying to discern what it was, but it was too dark.

Abigail appeared beside me. “What’s down there?” she inquired.

“I’ll find out,” I said, and rolled up my sleeves.

“Wait,” Abigail grabbed my arm. I looked at her, she looked at me, and I saw the concern in her eyes. “We stick together, remember? We both go down.”

I nodded.

Carefully, I helped her descend into the hole, holding her hands and making sure she didn’t slip. Once she was in, I climbed down beside her. Kneeling in the dirt, I felt around, trying to find the glimmer I had seen from above. But it was gone. Abigail crouched beside me, digging at the dirt with her hands.

“Do you see it?” she asked.

“Not anymore.”

From above us, Travis called out. “Need some help?”

Abigail looked at me. “We could use a light.”

I nodded. Getting out of the hole was a chore. With a jump, I managed to grab the upper edge and after some struggle, hoisted myself out.

Travis peeked over the fence, watching me brush myself off. In his hands was an electric lantern, which he passed to me as I approached.

“Thanks for your help, Travis,” I told him.

“You forgot something,” he said. His face darkened.

I froze. “Abigail.”

He shook his head. “No. The alarm.”

The buzzing of my clock startled me awake, jolting me out of bed. It was the first time in almost a month that I had woken to it first, rather than on my own. I could feel my heart racing in my rib cage, and I pressed the heel of my hand into my chest to try to calm myself.

After a moment, I switched off the clock and rolled over to check on my wife. She was gone. Her place in the bed was empty, though there was still the silhouette of her form pressed into the mattress. Had she gotten up before me? I arose and checked the bathroom, then went downstairs and looked for her in the living room and kitchen.

The house was empty. Abigail was gone. My head was swirling with confusion and panic. She was with me when I fell asleep! Where had I seen her last? What month was it?

I looked out the window at the cold, bitter morning. The horizon was still only pink from the rising sun. The air was cold enough that cars passing by left a trail of exhaust.

Pulling on my coat and shoes, I trudged outside and hurried around the back of the house. The back yard was empty. No hole in the hard, frozen ground. Kneeling down, I felt the ground with my hand. The grass still covered everything, no spot where a hole had been dug.

I was still there, panicking and confused, when my neighbor Travis came out to get his newspaper. He saw me crouching in the backyard, eyes full of fear, and came over.

“Looking for something?” he asked.

I stared at him, trembling. “Can I borrow your shovel?”