BY Sparky

Get away

A foreboding voice clear as the twilight sky warned him to grab his partner by the back of his blue shirt and run like hell. Perhaps a remnant of the disjointed dream that had tormented his sleep the last few nights, a sense of impending danger smothered his breath, rendering him helpless as a caterpillar in a tightly wound cocoon.

Johnny would think he was crazy. Maybe he was. There was no bomb, no fire, no earthly reason to feel compelled to repeat his blind dash in a state of total panic. There was nothing at all in the early evening air… nothing, but a pleasant summer breeze that ruffled gently through his hair.

His feet failed to oblige his impulse. Assuming his inability to move was related to the impression his boots were somehow suddenly encased in concrete, Roy warily regarded the vacant-eyed stare of the young girl sitting motionless in front of them. A hushed, husky whisper managed to claw its way free from the confines of his throat. It was the best he could do.

"Johnny. Be careful."

Not more than seventeen, she was disarmingly pretty, in that fresh-faced teen aged sort of way. Her long blonde hair was parted down the middle, flung over slender shoulders in loosely woven braids, bound at the ends with thin strips of rawhide. Framed by long, feathery lashes, her eyes were a cool, distant shade of jade green. Faint freckles sprinkled her tanned cheeks and crossed the bridge of her delicate, slightly upturned nose. Dressed in faded denim bell bottoms, a gauzy peasant shirt, and worn leather moccasins, she could have been the poster girl for a generation of kids who'd dropped out, tuned in, and turned on. Could have been, if not for the split lip and dark purple bruise filling the hollow under one eye.

"I will. I... I just wanna see if I can talk to her, is all."

To ears accustomed to the everyday background noises of the city, the stillness surrounding them seemed unnatural. It contributed as much to Roy's edginess as the drug-dazed look in the girl's eyes. Dispatched for a "difficulty breathing" call that was well out of their normal response area, the run had taken them into an unfamiliar, isolated area in the rocky hills above Malibu. Roy doubted there was a phone inside the dilapidated trailer that sat some thirty yards away. He wondered who had made the call to the fire department, and why they hadn't returned. It all added up to just one thing in his mind.

Trouble.

Whizzing in frantic circles around his head, the sudden arrival of a trio of pesky flies cut through the wooden silence like a buzz saw. Startled, he swatted at them with his hand, but they'd already disappeared. Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw Johnny inch closer to the girl.

Stop him

Certain Johnny would think he'd taken leave of his senses, Roy stepped backwards. Surprised to find his feet moved easily, he tried his voice. It came out completely normal.

"Johnny, I... I'm gonna go contact dispatch and request an ambulance, and check on the ETA of the sheriff."

"All right. Sounds like a good idea."

"Johnny...."

"... I know. I'll be careful. I'm just gonna see if she can tell me her name."

Keeping a discreet distance to avoid frightening her, Johnny crouched down in front of the girl, sitting cross-legged with her hands in her lap. First impression said she was strung out on something. There was no response when he slowly waved a hand in front of her. Except for the facial cuts and bruises, he saw no sign of other physical injuries.

"Hi. My name's Johnny." His introduction was as jaunty as if they'd just met in Rampart's elevator. "What's yours?"

It took a few seconds, but her eyelids finally blinked. For the first time since they'd arrived, she seemed to realize someone else was there.

"Oh, hi." Her childlike voice had a soft, dreamy quality to it. A smile began to form when she finally looked at him, but the cut on her lip put a quick end to that effort. "I'm Sunny," she said sweetly. "It's short for Sunshine."

"Sunshine, huh? That's a real pretty name. Real pretty."

"Thank you. Who are you?"

"Well, Sunny, my partner and I are paramedics with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. We got a call that you were having trouble breathing, and we're here to see if we can help."

"Help?" She put a fingertip to her swollen lip and winced. "Oh."

When her mind seemed to wander off, Johnny moved a little closer, trying to make eye contact again. "Sunny? Do you think it would be all right if I took a look at you? You know, just… just to make sure you're okay, and see if I can get that cut on your lip cleaned up a bit?"

"I... I don't know." Sunny slowly shifted her gaze in the direction of the trailer.

Johnny watched as her whole body trembled, then stiffened. Her features clouded over with confusion, and… something else he couldn't quite read. It was enough to make him hesitate, and take a quick glance over his shoulder to see if Roy was still talking to the dispatcher.

He hadn't looked away for more than a few seconds, but it was all the time Sunny had needed to pull out the .22 handgun that had been hidden from view underneath her leg. When Johnny turned his head again, she was holding it in her hands, staring at the weapon as though she had no idea what it was or where it had come from.

Wanting to shout a warning to Roy, Johnny forced himself instead to keep his voice low and calm. He cautiously extended his hand to take it from her. "Sunny? You… uh.... you think you could give that to me?"

She raised the gun. "Sure," she said, trying that smile again.

A single gunshot shattered the stillness. Roy dropped the mic and bolted from the squad. Relieved at first when his partner stood up and turned around, Roy saw Johnny's expression of surprise gradually darken, like a shade being drawn down his face. His right hand was tightly pressed under his rib cage. Blood seeped through his shirt and ran down his fingers.

Johnny's eyes desperately searched Roy's for reassurance, and found only fear. Knees buckling, he fell forward against Roy's chest.

Stumbling from the sudden added weight in his arms, Roy did his best to carefully lower Johnny to the ground, mentally checking off what he would need first --.pressure bandages, biophone, IVs. Before he could reach for anything, Johnny grabbed his wrist. The light of life was fading from his eyes. He was trying to say something.

"Roy?"

He's gone

"Hey, Roy? Roy, are you asleep?"

"Well, if he was, Gage, he isn't any more."

"Oh, shut-up, Chet. Roy? Come on, it's time to start dinner. You're cookin', remember?"

Cracking his eyes open, Roy discovered he wasn't outdoors, but laying on the couch in the rec room at the station. Johnny wasn't on the ground, bleeding to death. He and Chet were sitting at the table, playing cards, having some fun at his expense.

"I don't know, John. He doesn't look so good. Kinda pale and sweaty. I don't know if I wanna eat anything he touches tonight. What if he's sick?"

"You know, you're right. He doesn't look too good." Johnny tossed down a card and leaned back in his chair. "Roy, you feelin' okay?"

Before he could sit up, Roy had to give a firm push to move the dog laying on his chest.

"Awww, Roy," Chet protested, "Henry just crawled up there and got comfortable. You looked so cute together when you put your arms around him a minute ago."

The sad-eyed Bassett groaned and flopped on the other end of the couch when Roy stood up. Brushing the dog hairs from his shirt and pants gave him reason not to look at the other two until his heart rate returned to normal and he could feel some color come back to his face.

He finally raised his head. In the brief instant his eyes connected with Johnny's, Roy saw it all again. Blood. Disbelief. Fear. Death. Then it was gone. Though the images in his dreams always disappeared once he woke up, the feeling that there was something real about them remained, holding on a little longer, a little stronger, each time. He mumbled under his breath that he needed to wash up before fixing dinner, and left in a hurry.

Chet's puzzled gaze followed Roy out of the room, before turning back to Johnny. "What was that all about? He looked like he'd seen a ghost."

"I don't know." Johnny tried to shake off the weird feeling he'd gotten when Roy had looked at him. "He's been acting kinda funny all day. When I asked him about it, he said he hasn't slept very well the last few nights. Maybe he's just got somethin' on his mind."

"Well, I got something on my mind too, and it's dinner. I'm hungry. Why don't you get up and give him a hand."

"Why don't I get up? I'm not gonna get up. Why don't you get up? Hey, give me that card...." Johnny pushed Chet's hand away from the deck, then turned the top card over just as the tones sounded. Instantly out of their chairs, neither one paid attention to the one he'd drawn. The Ace of Spades.

The death card.

* * * * * * * *

"What's the matter, pal? Rough night?"

Hank Stanley sympathetically offered the cup of coffee he'd just poured for himself to Johnny. He looked like he needed it more. The last one to arrive in the rec room after the wake up tones had rousted them from an uninterrupted night's sleep, a pale, bleary-eyed Gage vaguely resembled death warmed over.

Johnny declined the offer, getting a glass of water instead. "Not feelin' so good, Cap. I think I'm coming down with the flu."

"Too bad," Chet piped up, "I told you we shouldn't have let Roy fix dinner last night. Now you're gonna miss my poker game later."

"Chet, I told you I wasn't sick." Roy suddenly cut his argument short. He wasn't dreaming, but the voice was there. In his mind. Whispering. Warning.

Do something

Defending his partner, Johnny agreed. "I probably picked it up when I worked overtime at 99s the other day. A couple of the guys there had it."

"You've been working a lot of overtime lately, John," Stanley added. "Maybe you're getting run down, workin' too much."

"Could be, Cap. I think I'll just… go home and go back to bed for a while."

Chet slid his chair away from the table, skeptically looking back and forth between the two paramedics. "Roy should do the same. Lookin' kinda pale and shaky again, pal. Whatever it is you two have, I don't want it."

"B-shift should start showing up any minute now," Stanley said. "We'll all get out of here, and hopefully come back in a few days with a healthy crew."

Thirty minutes later, the shift change complete, everyone headed for the parking lot. Roy waited until the others were gone and Johnny was behind the wheel of the Rover, before checking on him one more time. "You okay to drive?"

Johnny sighed in mild annoyance. "I can make it home. I'm not that sick."

"I know. But, if you need anything...."

"Roy, you live forty-five minutes away. You're not gonna drive all the way back here just to bring me some aspirin. Stop worrying. Go home."

There was nothing he could say to keep Johnny from leaving without sounding like he was one taco short of a combination plate. "Do me a favor. Call later, and let me know if you're gonna skip the poker party."

Roy had been acting very peculiarly the last twenty-four hours, and if he had felt better, Johnny would have hounded him for an explanation, but all that was on his mind was getting home and going to sleep. He was feeling worse than he wanted to admit. "I'll call you," he promised. "Now, can I go?"

"Yeah, sorry."

Roy watched Johnny drive away, waiting to see if the voice revisited him. When it didn't, he got in his car and headed for the freeway. Taking his time to think it all through again, he reasoned it had to have been his imagination. There could be no other logical explanation, and being a logical man, he readily accepted that. As for the dreams -- they were simply that, he told himself. Dreams. Nothing more.

The closer to home he got, the better he began to feel. The troublesome thoughts had drifted out the window by the time he reached his neighborhood. He had better things to think about than crazy dreams and imagined voices. Joanne and Jennifer were going to be gone most of the day, and he and Chris had a busy father-and-son schedule planned. Then, there was the poker game at Chet's later that night. Roy was hoping Johnny would feel well enough to show up. He sort of enjoyed taking his partner's money.

The enjoyable day passed quickly, and it was four o'clock when the phone rang. Expecting it to be Johnny, Roy was taken by surprise when he heard the caller's voice.

"Roy? It's Joe Early."

"Well, hi, Doctor Early." Roy switched the receiver from his left hand to his right out of habit, wondering why the doctor would be calling him at home.

"I'm glad you answered the phone. I called earlier, but you weren't home. Roy, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Johnny came in about four hours ago with what we thought was a severe case of the flu. He said he'd been vomiting and running a fever all morning. He's been getting progressively worse since he got here. Nothing we've done has helped, and his fever is still climbing."

Roy's fingers tightened around the phone handle. "How bad is it?" The long pause on the other end of the line made his blood run cold.

"His temperature is just over 104. It's gone up two degrees in the last two hours. There's no easy way to say this, Roy. We think it's the virus again."

"The virus? You mean the.... the monkey thing? But…, that was a long time ago."

"A virus can stay in your system forever, dormant until something triggers it again. We're running tests right now to confirm our suspicions. I hate to think it Roy, but all the signs are there. The sudden onset, the vomiting, the high fever."

"But you've still got the serum? He'll be all right?"

"It's not something we have sitting on the shelf, and we don't even know if it would work this time. He could have an immunity to it, or the virus could have mutated. We're working on it, but the real problem right now is time. Johnny's a very sick man. Maybe if he had come in right away, he might have a better chance."

"A better chance? You mean...?" Roy almost dropped the phone when he understood the implication. "Doc, I'm on my way. You tell Johnny… you tell Johnny I said to hold on." He hung up without waiting for a response.

"Chris! Come down here!" he shouted up the stairway. "We gotta go!"

Frightened by the urgency in his dad's voice, Chris ran down the stairs two at a time. He was even more frightened by the look on his dad's face, but he didn't understand. "Mom?" he asked in a panicked voice.

Roy realized what must have gone through his son's mind, and put his hand on his shoulder to calm his fears. "Chris, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," Roy apologized. "Your mom is okay. That was Dr. Early on the phone. Johnny is real sick. We need to get to the hospital right away."

Chris had never seen his usually composed, cool-headed father look so distraught, and followed him to the car without a word.

They made the forty-five minute drive in just under thirty. As they rushed through the emergency entrance, Roy realized he had no idea what room Johnny was in. Dixie wasn't at the desk. Her absence doubled his anxiety level as he searched for a familiar face. Finally spotting Mike Morton, Roy practically pulled Chris down the busy hallway toward the doctor.

"Mike?" Roy's voice was rough, nervous.

Morton quickly finished his instructions to the nurse, then glanced down at Chris and said hello with a forced smile.

"Where is he? Johnny...."

With a tilt of his head, Morton indicated the hallway behind him. "In the observation room around the corner. Brackett and Early are with him right now."

"Can I see him? How is he? Do they know-" Roy's anxious questions came to an abrupt halt when he saw the other two doctors walking toward them. Their heads were down, their shoulders slumped.

Too late

"Dad?" Chris tugged on his father's hand. "Dad?"

Roy looked at Chris, stunned, not knowing what to say.

"Dad, Uncle Johnny's on the phone. I told him you were asleep, but he said I should wake you up."

As his surroundings came into focus, Roy clutched the arms of the recliner and laid his head back, taking a slow, deep breath. It had been too real. Too real. Aware Chris was staring at him, he managed to pull himself together. "Tell Johnny I'll be there in a minute," he said quietly.

It took that long before he could move. Still confused, but less disoriented, he picked up the phone. "Johnny?" he asked tentatively, not quite believing it was him on the other end of the line.

"Hey, Roy. I was just callin' to remind you to pick up a couple six packs on your way to Chet's tonight."

His fears eased. It was Johnny all right. "Yeah. I… uh… you're gonna be there?"

"Why wouldn't I? Don't be so sure you're going to take my money again either. I've been practicing, you know."

"You're not feeling sick?"

"Never felt better. Why?"

"You said you thought you were coming down with the flu this morning."

"I never said that. Roy, you know, you're really startin' to worry me."

"Yeah, well, I'm starting to worry myself." His light tone brushed off any questions. "I'll see you at Chet's about eight."

"I'll be there. And, uh, Roy.... Don't forget the beer."

"Don't you forget your money." Roy hung up, wondering if Joanne would mind if he spent the night at Chet's. He planned on having more than just a few beers.

* * * * * * * *

"Mornin'," he said brightly. Thoroughly refreshed after two dream-free nights, Roy was feeling good. Better yet, his partner, though sporting a decidedly grouchy frown, was standing there in one piece. A healthy-looking one piece.

Johnny gave him a little glare, then reached in his locker for his shoes. "Glad you're in a good mood," he grumbled.

Chet peeked around the corner and smiled at Roy. "You still mad about the other night, Gage?"

"I... I'm not mad. I just don't understand why it is every time I get one of those dumb games figured out, you guys have to go and… and change the rules."

Roy picked up the shoe Johnny had dropped when he was waving it around, and held it out to him. "We don't change the rules, Johnny, we change the game. That's what makes playing poker so interesting."

Johnny snatched his shoe from Roy's hand. "Well, what I don't understand is how you could be so drunk on your ass and still beat me."

Roy scratched his head with an amused look in his eyes. "I seem to recall you were the one who passed out at the table with his face in his chips during the last hand. That could have had something to do with it."

"I didn't pass out. I fell asleep. I...."

"... Forget it, Gage," Chet interrupted. "Get your shoes on, we're late for roll call. The guys on C-shift are already gone, and Cap's waitin'."

They had just lined up when the tones sounded, followed by a full-alarm dispatch for a fire in an office building. Once in the squad, Roy handed Johnny the address slip.

"I got a feelin' it's gonna be one of those days," Johnny muttered.

Roy waited until they pulled out of the bay, then announced with some satisfaction, "I'm glad you're the one with the feeling for a change."

Intent on the run, Johnny didn't bother to ask what he meant.

He probably should have.

* * * * * * * *

The smoke on the second floor was so thick and so black, they couldn't see a thing. Flashlights were virtually useless. Only the sound of their BAs assured them they were still together as they crawled down the hall, and even those were hard to hear over the noise of the fire. They had little time. A quick search and you're out, Stanley had said. He got no argument from either of them.

A computer technician who had come in early to get the systems up and running before the rest of the staff arrived was unaccounted for. The department manager had told them the computer room was in the middle of the hall, the fifth door down on their right. Johnny, in the lead, had counted the doors they'd passed by feeling the wall as they made their way along.

He stopped to wait for Roy. Peeling his glove off, Johnny felt for heat. The door was warm, but not hot. Slipping the glove back on, he grabbed at Roy's turnout coat to let him know he was there. "This should be it," he shouted. "Door's not hot."

The heat was almost unbearable. Sweat soaked their clothes underneath the turnouts and plastered their hair to their heads underneath the helmets. Their air was being sucked in at twice the normal rate in short, rapid pants. The smoke was only slightly less dense near the floor. Burning chunks of ceiling were falling all around them. Time was of the essence.

Roy tapped Johnny's arm, letting him know he was ready. The door opened easily. Though hazy, visibility inside the room was fair, and the heat less intense. On their feet, a quick, but thorough search turned up no one. They had to leave.

Out the door first, Roy dropped to his stomach to make his way back to the landing. He could hear the shouts of the crews at that end of the hallway as he got closer. He stopped to wait for Johnny, listening for his BA. He didn't hear it. The warning signal on his air tank took him by surprise. It hadn't seemed like they'd taken that long. He listened again for Johnny as his own signal grew louder.

Nothing.

Two minutes, he figured. At the most. Then his air would be gone. Johnny's would be running out too. He had no choice but to stand up in the overwhelming heat. He had to move quickly. There was no time to waste. Certainly no time wonder if this was what his dreams had been telling him. Dreams he'd ignored. Dreams that had become reality.

Roy still hadn't found Johnny when the explosion blasted through the far side of the building like a bomb had been detonated. Pain erupted in his chest and his shoulder as he was thrown face forward against the wall.

In that never land state between consciousness and darkness, his heart cried for the friend he'd failed. Only the pain kept him from giving in to the blackness that called his name.

"Roy?"

"Hmmm?"

"Roy, it's Dr. Brackett. Can you wake up for me?"

Roy sleepily blinked his eyes. The slightly distorted face of Kelly Brackett hovered in front of him. There was pain. Real pain. His chest, his shoulder. The more he felt it, the more aware he became. Voices floated around him. Familiar voices.

"Looks like it's finally wearing off, Dix. Let's make sure his records contraindicate Darvocet for pain. When he wakes up a little more, we'll see what his tolerance level is, and give him something milder next time."

He tried to remember how he got here, but couldn't pull the details together. Something about Johnny. His throat was parched, his mouth dry as dust, and nothing more than a groan slipped past his lips.

"Take it easy, Roy," Brackett said gently. "You're going to be fine. You've just had a bad reaction to a pain killer. Can you tell me how you feel?"

"J-Johnny? Hurt?"

Brackett wondered where that came from. "Well, that's not exactly the answer I was looking for. Johnny's fine. He wasn't with you. You were in a car accident on your way to work this morning. Do you remember?"

Somewhere amongst the jumbled images in his mind, he managed to find that one. The car that cut out of the lane at the last minute when the driver of the truck in front of it slammed on his brakes, leaving Roy with no where to go, except to plow into the rear bumper of the fully loaded eighteen-wheeler.

He felt the straw at his lips and gratefully swallowed the water Dixie offered. It made talking easier when he finally got around to answering the question. "Sort of. Do I want to know the damages?"

"You were the only one injured…, besides your car. I don't know how it's doing, but you were lucky. No broken bones, no head injury. Your chest and shoulder hit the steering wheel pretty hard. You've got a severely bruised sternum, a few ribs that'll probably hurt for a while and a dislocated shoulder. Nothing serious, although you were in a lot of pain when they brought you in."

"I sort of remember that. How long… how long have I been here?"

"It's been…," Brackett checked his watch, "… a little over five hours. We gave you some Darvocet for the pain, and it put you to sleep for while. According to Joanne and the nurses, though, you didn't get much rest."

"Joanne's here?" Roy looked around the room, but didn't see her.

"She just stepped out a few minutes ago. I think she went to call your neighbor to check on the kids." Dixie smiled and offered him some more water. "She should be right back. I know she'll be happy to see you awake. You had her kind of worried for a while."

Roy closed his eyes as an involuntary groan slipped out again.

"How bad's the pain, Roy?" Brackett asked with renewed concern.

"Can't say that it doesn't hurt some. If it's all the same to you, I think I'll pass on whatever you gave me before." He had no wish to watch Johnny die again, even if it was only in a dream.

Brackett nodded, his voice almost apologetic. "The nurses said you became pretty agitated a number of times. Joanne thought for sure you were having nightmares. It's not an unusual side-effect with Darvocet, but it seems you had a stronger reaction to it than most. I'm just glad it's finally wearing off. We'll prescribe something milder that should help you relax without knocking you out for another four or five hours."

"Thanks. How… uh, how long am I going to be here, Doc?"

"At least another twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight. We'll see how you're doing tomorrow about this time, and decide then. I imagine you'll be taking a break from your paramedic duties for at least six weeks. You'll have to go through some physical therapy with your shoulder, but I don't see any long-term complications." Brackett finished scribbling a note in the chart, and got ready to leave. "Dix, you coming?"

She shook her head. "I think I'll stay and keep Roy company for a few minutes until Joanne gets back. Betty's got the desk covered, but if you need me, you know where to find me."

The doctor paused at the door. "Take it easy, Roy. One of the nurses should be right in to give you something to help take the edge off the pain."

Mumbling his thanks, Roy closed his eyes again. He may have been asleep for the last five hours, but it didn't feel like it. He was exhausted.

"Roy?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I get you anything? More water?" Dixie smoothed out the blanket, watching him with curiosity.

He opened his eyes again to see her smiling at him. "No. Well. You could do one thing for me."

"What's that?"

"Could you pinch me? I want to make sure this isn't another dream."

"It's no dream, believe me." She laughed at his suggestion. "I don't think you need any more pain right now than you already have."

"No, I guess not. Is… uh, is Johnny here?"

"Not now. He was in about an hour ago when he and Chuck came by for supplies. He was pretty worried about you, too. Said he'd call when he could."

"He was okay?"

"As far as I could tell. Why do you ask?"

Roy tried to move his shoulder, quickly discovering that was a mistake. He had to wait for the stab of pain to fade away before he could talk again. "Do you think dreams… do you think they can be a warning that something's going to happen?"

"Like a premonition? I'm afraid you're asking the wrong person, Roy. I'm no expert. I've heard it said that dreams are just memories of things that have happened in the past, buried in your subconscious that you only remember in your sleep."

"Maybe that's why they seem so real. None of those things ever exactly happened, but when different dreams end the same way, I have to tell you, it's kinda scary."

Dixie recalled the first thing Roy had asked when he woke up was if Johnny was hurt. "That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. Dix, do me a favor. Don't… don't say anything to Johnny. They were just dreams. You know him, he'd probably obsess himself into an ulcer trying to figure out what they meant."

"Well, your secret's safe with me. But, don't forget, the drug probably had a lot to do with it. Even a mild narcotic can do some pretty weird things."

"Still...."

"Tell you what," Dixie announced, deciding a change of topic was in order. "Let me go find that wife of yours and let her know you're awake, before you fall asleep again. I'll see where that nurse is, too."

"Thanks, Dixie. If you talk to Johnny, could you… uh...."

"… I'll tell him to be careful, Roy."

She hadn't been gone for more than a minute, when he closed his eyes and drifted off into a peaceful, dreamless slumber.

Sleep well

* * * * * * * *

The night air was brisk as the motorcyclist expertly negotiated the canyon turns. He was glad he had his thermals on underneath his jeans and chaps. <>Good investment, he thought to himself, still, it doesn't keep my face from getting frozen. Man, I can't wait to get home and thaw out. He hadn't passed anyone for ten minutes and didn't expect to -- not at two in the morning. His headlamp lit the winding turns.

He spied a car in the distance, heading his way. The guy has his brights on, he thought, I hope he remembers to flick them down when he gets to me. Last thing I need is to be blinded going around a turn. The car's progress was easy to track. Each time it came around a turn, the headlights were brighter and larger.

They were now one turn away from each other.

Oh, man, am I tired, he thought. I really should have taken Roy up on his invitation for dinner. Yeah, but, then, I would've missed the delights of Santa Barbara and Julie. He smiled, remembering.

The roadside lit up ahead as the headlights from the approaching car raked along the guard rail. It burst around the final turn, fast, right in Johnny's lane. The high beams completely blinded him, and he looked away to try and get his sight back. The driver of the car saw him at the last moment and tried to swerve back into the correct lane, but overcompensated and fishtailed, losing control of the car's rear end. It started sliding perpendicular to the road and then started spinning, as the driver made a futile effort to regain control. He never had a chance. The car plowed into and through the guard rail, and down into the canyon.

Johnny instinctively put the bike down in an effort to slow his momentum, and hung on for the ride. The bike slid towards the railing - no good, he realized, he was going to go through and follow the car over the edge.

He felt the impact, and then he was airborne, twisting and somersaulting. And, then…, he felt nothing.

"Johnny?"

Roy sat up in bed. His heart was pounding, his pulse racing, his palms sweaty. He looked over at Joanne, still sleeping soundly next to him. It had been four weeks since his accident. Four weeks without a dream. He looked at the clock on the night stand, as he reached for the phone.

2:08 a.m.

Johnny would think he was crazy. Maybe he was.

Maybe not

* * * * * * * *

If life is but an illusion,
are dreams then reality?