“Life after near-death: Why surviving is only the beginning”

…Patricia had been more severely injured than her husband, which may explain to some extent the differences in their responses. Because the bear bit into her face, she had repeated operations on her sinuses. Within weeks of each surgery, infection would set in again. More surgery would follow. Her head and face ached all the time. Patricia needed to experience her body healing in order to make progress, and that just wasn’t happening.

Also, their experiences of the attack had been different in one crucial way. Trevor had had no premonition about the bear. Patricia had ignored the clear warning she had felt.

Lisette duPré Brieger had premonitions, too. She and Marshall Johnson worked in the same office. At the annual Christmas party, she saw him sharpening an axe. She thought it odd, but they worked for an oil company that owned a 400-acre farm in the Virginia countryside. Maybe the axe was for chopping firewood out there.

Lisette liked Marshall. A friend had driven her to the party, but when Marshall offered her a ride home, Lisette accepted. As they drove, Marshall asked if she’d ever been out to the farm. She had not. Marshall drove out into the countryside, parking by the farm, then reached into the back seat for the axe. Without having to think about it, Lisette threw open the door and began running across the snow-covered ground in her high heels. She was struggling towards the farmhouse when she glanced back and saw Marshall standing in the illumination from the headlights, looking puzzled.

“What are you doing?” he called out.

She hesitated. What was that in his hands? Not the axe. A little box. Lisette walked back, now conscious of how wet her feet were, how terrified she had been.

“Open it,” he said. “What were you doing?”

“I thought you might be about to murder me with that axe.”

“I’m hardly an axe murderer,” he said with a chuckle. All at once it was a joke. And the flicker of something sinister that she had seen in the car subsided beneath the surface once again.

The box contained a necklace. She was the administrative assistant at the company, and he was technically one of her bosses, so this was in keeping with the Christmas tradition. Even so, Lisette was touched. How silly of me, she thought. And what an odd thing to think, that he wanted to kill me. Where had that come from?

but then (via And, Meanwhile)