HeebieJeebies

Do you ever have nightmares that make you feel like you're 5? I used to have what my doctor called "night terrors" as a kid... And they pretty much went away as I got older. But every once in a great while i'll have a doozy of a nightmare. They're vivid, and I always wake up sweating and scared shitless.

While they scare the bejesus out of me, I like to keep track of them though. Mostly because my subconscious is one artsy son a bitch. If my brain would let me remember everything, it would make an awesome horror comic. Which I would totally make Neil Gaiman ghost-write and illustrate. Totally.

But here it is:
On a dark and stormy night my brother and I are driving toward my house on the highway when I miss our exit... He's bitching in the passenger seat about how I suck at driving, and I should make a u-turn and yadda yadda yadda. Me of course ignoring him drives on to the next exit, and realizes that we're almost out of gas so I pull into the nearest one. A great big Mobil station with a few creepy people standing around.

They look a lot like this^
but kinda like Marilyn Manson
 with greasy trucker hats
 and flannel shirts

I go inside to pay, and come back out to find my brother being chatted up by them. I grab him by the arm and head for the car as it really starts raining hard. Cue gas station lights all cutting out. It's pitch black now.  Slamming my gas cap shut, getting in, and throwing the GPS at my brother while saying "get us the fuck out of here". As he's fumbling with it I pull out of the parking lot headed back toward the highway.

 My car's driving weird though, it's turning harder than it should, and we're going faster than I want. But I think i've got a handle on it. The headlights are too dim though, they keep flickering. And I start to get that feeling you do when you're playing a video game with your friend, think you're doing well, and realize you've been looking at the wrong side of the screen. Instant realization that i'm not really controlling my car. We're swerving and going too fast, and my brother's finally caught on that something isn't right. He keeps yelling at me to slow down, that we're going to crash. We're close to our exit though so I keep concentrating. A dark shadow, it looks like my brother stuck his head over to my side in front of the steering wheel comes between me and the spedometer and I start to yell at my brother to move his damn head. I give it a shove out of the way, and it doesn't budge. I look over at my little brother and start to scream. He's still right there, buckled into his seat with a look of pure terror on his face. The head in front of my doesn't move, and I shove at it harder. it's definitely human and alive. I realize I can't feel my legs, or the gas pedal. everything goes silent. I start screaming and trying to open my door to shove the demon out, with no luck as my car keeps accelerating.

The last thing I remember is just this intense panic and the realization that we were both going to die.
After I woke up it just kept settling deeper and deeper, and I started playing 'what if'. What if I had thrown it out? What if there was another one waiting in the trunk? What if it chased me after the car crashed?

Like I said, I don't have these too often. But when I do it's always me and my little brother. He's always about 12, and i'm always trying to save his ass.

Anyway, wanted to get it off my brain before it dissolved.