Blackout

Harold didn’t remember when his haunting dream encounters began, and he never knew when they would once again rear their ugly heads.

It often happened on a work day when, right after breakfast, he rushed out the door to his garage, backed into the driveway then found himself in a nightmarish dream world. He dodged drones flying at him and trying to knock him to the ground but awakened just in time to avoid becoming a victim.

He lost his memory of about 10 minutes of his life every time, but, just before every blackout, he saw a yellow car with a dent on its side. Couldn’t make out where the mysterious cars came from or if any passengers emerged.

As an IT expert, Harold had worked in that field for 10 years, since graduating from Rutgers University. Even his part-time jobs during and right after college did not involve driving taxis or working for Uber or the other transportation services.

Also, he had no idea how the left rear fender of the mysterious cars had gotten dented. The car began to appear just before every blackout in a different part of the city, always on a street he saw on his way to or from work or on his way to shopping or other activities,

Harold resolved to figure out the reason for the link between the cars and his blackouts. One Monday morning he emerged from one of his episodes on a side street a few blocks from his home. He walked up to one of the yellow cars parked there and tried to open the driver’s door. When he touched the door handle he received a shock that knocked him off his feet. Then the car vanished into thin air.

For the next week or so the dream episodes suddenly stopped, and with them, the mysterious vehicles.

Then, two weeks later, he looked out his window one morning to see one of the cars parked at the end of his driveway. He stared at it for a good 10 minutes, but this time, a blackout did not happen.

Concerned about his mental state, Harold made an appointment to see Dr. James Fosterer, a friend from college who had gone to medical school and then received his degree in psychiatry.

“Don’t see anything unusual or of concern in your mental state,” Dr. Fosterer concluded. “Have you been under unusual stress lately in your personal or work life?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary happens at work,” Harold replied. “Aside from a few minor spats with girlfriends, no problems in my social life either.”

The psychiatrist suggested that his patient think about any conflicts he had recently when he made purchases or any business transactions that may have gone sideways.

Again, “negative,” Harold said.

After he left Fosterer’s office he began to wrack his brain for a connection between the strange yellow vehicles and the blackouts. Also, why had the car suddenly popped up in his driveway without causing him a mental power outage?

“Wait,” a thought flashed across his mind. “Two weeks ago I drove down Route 113, in Fredorca, about 10 miles from my house. I stopped at a red light and, suddenly, this guy in a yellow car tailgating me started leaning on his horn then hit the gas. He nearly ran into me then sped up and mounted the curb to my left. Came within inches of crashing into me.”

Harold decided to check with the Fredorca police.

“Strange you should mention that,” Desk Sergeant Ollie Gray said, “we’ve had several reports of a yellow car with a dent in its fender parked in different locations around town around 9 o’clock at night. The driver would pull up to a parked car, honk his horn loudly for two minutes then speed away. Nobody could identify the person behind the wheel. None of those who spotted the car had any history with a yellow vehicle or its owner. One weird detail though. About three people reporting these incidents said they had blacked out after they heard the horn and spotted the car. They didn’t recall what happened during their blackouts.”

“Same thing happened to me. Except when the car parked at the end of my driveway,” Harold said.

“Professor Todd Jenkins, an expert on unusual phenomena at Fredorca State University, is looking into the situation. You might touch base with him, “ the sergeant suggested.

“It’s called mental transference,” Jenkins revealed. “In times of extreme anger, such as when someone believes another driver cut them off on the road, they can cause the person they believe is causing their anger to turn off mentally. They often warn the target of the transference by blowing a car horn. Our residents reported about a half dozen of these incidents around town, but we’ve heard it has happened on and off at different times of the year all over the United States.”

“Then how do you stop it? Don’t want to put my life or that of my friends in danger if one of these people decides to do something more drastic,” Harold said.

According to the professor, “Several other victims reported that the yellow car’s drivers apparently electrified the door handles on their cars when they thought those looking in would confront or harm those behind the wheel. After they believed the perceived danger had passed they continued spying without incident as long as no one approached the cars. Looks like their power fades away and the blackouts eventually disappear and the strange yellow car and its driver leave the scene. Sergeant Gray has made a record of our research and has a complete description of the vehicle. We don’t expect it to appear again, but the police will make an arrest for reckless driving if it does.”

With that, Harold and Jenkins heard a loud blast that sounded like a car horn. They looked out the professor’s laboratory window to see a yellow car with a dent on it speed away.

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