After Dark

 

Anne Donnelly slid behind the wheel of her black BMW and shut the door hastily behind her.  She quickly put her key in the ignition and turned on her car, listening for the comforting sound of her automatic door locks. Once she heard the familiar click around her signaling all four doors were locked she breathed a tiny sigh of relief that she was once more safely in her car. She searched for her cell phone inside the chaotic contents of her cluttered purse, pressed the “on” button and placed the phone carefully in the gray leather console beside her. Anne slid the button on the edge of the Blue Tooth that continuously hung from her ear, adjusted her rearview mirror for the umpteenth time, pulled her seatbelt across her chest and satisfied that she was ready to go, eased her Beemer out of the parking lot belonging to Lawrence and Memorial Hospital.  Anne turned right at the end of the street instead of left toward the interstate, driving now on autopilot as her mind wandered back to the man lying unconscious in a room at the hospital she left behind.

A horrific automobile accident left Lee Donnelly, her husband of six years in a coma, seven months now and still counting and her mind often scrambled around the whys and the what ifs, especially after visiting hours were over. She remembered the late night phone call from her father-in-law, Stephen (apparently Stephen Donnelly was still named as the emergency contact on the little card tucked inside of her husband’s Burberry Tri-fold and when he woke up she was going to give him hell for it too) and the still hazy rush to the hospital.  She was thinking about  her husband’s face the first time she saw him after he was wheeled out of emergency surgery and how she had nearly told the doctor that it had all been a terrible mistake, that the man in the bed was not her husband  after all,

That person doesn’t look anything like my husband and I’ll be going now and leaving this nightmare behind me, thank you very much.

when she realized she had gone in the wrong direction.

Anne was nearly five miles down the road now and it was too late to turn around. She realized she was taking the long way home, the back way, and the bright June sun was already slipping behind the giant oak trees that lined the crowded streets.

 

“Shit,” Anne cursed out loud as she noticed the long black shadows dancing across the blacktop road that stretched out endlessly in front of her. She glanced over at the bright blue numbers of the digital clock in the dash and cursed again, this time under her breath.

            7:22

Even in late June, in this part of the Northeast, summer evenings come quick and there was no way she was going to be able to get home before dark. The forty plus miles from New London to Old Lyme takes over an hour during the summer especially on a Saturday night, with all of the out of state tourists and part-time residents crowding up the roads as they head home from the beaches  that line the Atlantic along the Sound. And Anne hated driving after dark.

At 8:08 Anne finally reached the south side of the town of East Lyme. She shot a disgusted look at the exit and entrance ramp to the interstate on her right as she drove pass knowing she would have been at this very spot nearly twenty minutes earlier had she not been preoccupied when she left the hospital. The road darkened in front of her and she pushed her sunglasses from her eyes and shoved them back on her head as she could now see the glow from her headlights beaming softly on the black road. She passed several cars and ten minutes later she saw the green and white sign that told her she did not have too far to go.

            Old Lyme Town Line

As she saw the sign disappear from view out of her right side window, she left the public beaches behind and found herself alone, on a quiet country road and it was nearly nightfall.

Anne went only a mile or so before the ancient oaks and maples draped the road so completely that any remaining daylight was nearly shut out. She slowed the Beemer down to just above a crawl and flipped her high-beams on. She was grateful there was no one else on the road so she could leave her highs on and drive at a safe snail pace. She relaxed a little and leaned back into the soft seat, enjoying the smell and texture of the leather. She realized it was a little cool in the car with the sun gone and  reached over to turn off the air conditioner. She glanced away from the road for only a second, less than a second really, only a moment and therefore was quite surprised to suddenly see a young child standing alone in the darkness on the side the road.

The little girl was about three years old with long blond hair tied back with a long silk white ribbon. She was wearing a navy blue sailor dress with a bright white collar. A carefully tied navy blue kerchief hung softly around her neck and white stockings and black patent leather Mary Jane’s covered her legs and feet. Anne comprehended all of this in a fraction of a second as she saw the dark blue eyes of the girl stare back at her through her windshield.

Anne reacted immediately and she realized if she had been speeding or even driving the speed limit at the time, she most assuredly would have hit the young girl but at her crawl she had time to swerve around the child. The Beemer handled like a champ and cut around the girl without so much as a tire squeal. The car came to a complete stop nearly immediately and Anne caught her breath. She was shaking uncontrollably as she pushed the gear shifter into Park and found her way out of her seatbelt. She opened the car door but as she stepped out into the street her knees gave way and she found herself sitting on the running board. She took a deep breath and stood up again, making sure her wobbly legs were steady enough to hold her up before she walked to the rear of her car. She stepped behind the rear bumper of her car and looked where the girl stood only a minute before. The dark street was empty and Anne began to panic.

 

I know I did not hit her.

Anne stumbled towards the shoulder and looked around. Light peeked between the rustling leaves of the trees as they swayed in the evening breeze sending tiny yellow shimmers onto the dark road but there was nothing there to see. The side of the road was empty except for a discarded Mountain Dew can. Anne stared accusingly at the can for a couple of seconds as if it should be able to tell her the whereabouts of the girl and was just not forthcoming with the information. Where did she go?

Maybe someone was with her and they have just gone home.

Anne didn’t really buy this theory, it seemed wrong somehow. There had been something about the young girl, something worrisome. Her eyes had a terrified look but Anne didn’t think it was because of the car nearly crushing her to death. Anne thought that the girl’s eyes also seemed as if they were pleading with Anne, begging her to stop and save her. A chill ran down Anne’s spine as she looked at the spot where the girl stood only a moment before.

There had been something else hadn’t there? Something even more wrong about the girl. 

Anne struggled with the memory for a second before she remembered.

Blood. There was blood on the little girl’s white tights wasn’t there? And maybe, just maybe that dark spot on the front of her navy blue sailor dress had been blood also.

Maybe someone else had hit her and left her there.

The thought turned Anne’s stomach and the taste of bile rose up into her throat as the panic came again.

Where the hell is she?

Anne looked up and down the deserted street looking for a sign of an accident or anything but in the darkness of dusk she could see nothing but the Mountain Dew can and it wasn’t talking.

I need to call somebody.

Anne took another quick look around then headed back towards the BMW and the cell phone sitting in the console.

She reached her car and slipped back into the front seat, closing and locking the door quickly behind her. She picked up her phone and gave a cursory glance at the clock.

            8:33

It was night.

Anne flipped open the phone and tried to press 911 on the tiny buttons. Her hands were shaking and her fingers were clumsy and she only managed 812 instead. She slammed the phone shut then snapped it back open, pressed the numbers again but still nothing happened. She looked on her phone where the tiny bars in the upper left hand corner should be and saw there were none there at all.

No service?

“Damn it!”

She shoved the useless phone back into the console realizing she would have to call from home which was still several miles away.

What the hell should I do?

Anne sat there for a few moments pondering the situation over in her mind then decided the best thing to do was to go home and call the police, they would know what to do. She placed her hand on the gear shift to put the car into Drive when she stopped.

I should probably take another look around though, just in case.

Anne took her hand off of the shift and looked out the driver’s door window but she could see no longer see anything outside. Fear caught in her chest as she looked out at the blackness surrounding her car. She looked up and down the street hoping for the welcome sight of approaching headlights but saw none.

Maybe just a quick peek, just to make sure. It will just take a second.

Anne took a deep breath and slowly reached for the bright silver handle in the door. She felt the cold metal in her hand but could not bring herself to pull on it. Her hand froze as the sharp stab of fear rose up her arm and down her spine.

God, you are such a baby. There is nothing out there, you were just out there and there was nothing there. Nothing and no one.

Anne took another deep breath but this time held it in, filling her lungs with as much air as they could hold. She felt the handle in her hand and was just about to open the door when the sudden sound of Journey’s Open Arms rang out from her cell phone in the silence from the console beside her.

Anne jumped a foot straight up in her seat, slamming her head on the roof of the car. That was the ring tone for Lee’s cell phone.

Anne grabbed for the phone in the darkness but instead sent it tumbling onto the seat next to her. She was shaking uncontrollably now but finally managed to locate the phone and pull it towards her face.

Please don’t hang up.

She looked at the caller ID on the cover before opening the phone and saw the name clear as day in the bright white illumination.

Lee

A hard twinge of anger of shot through her as she looked down at the name. Who would dare to use her husband’s phone? Who could be so cruel? She flipped opened the phone and shoved it against her ear.

“Hello!,” she snapped.

The phone crackled with static but the voice on the other end was unmistakable.

“Don’t get out of the car Anne.”

“Lee?”

“Don’t get out of the car. Can you hear me? Don’t get out of the car.”

“How….?”

Before she could finish her thought the phone went dead again.

Anne stared at the quiet phone in her hand. There were still no bars and she was pretty sure if she tried to use it she would find that it would not work. 

But that call came from her husband, there was no doubt of it, she would know the sound of her husband’s voice anywhere. Anne didn’t understand how but she had gotten his message quite clear and still holding the useless phone in her hand

Just in case.

and without so much as a glance behind her, she shoved the shift into Drive and headed towards home.

 

Hours later Anne was woken up by the sound of her golden retriever, Grace growling next to her in the bed and the far off sound of police sirens.

“What’s the matter girl?’ Without opening her eyes she stroked the downy white fur of the Golden’s belly, trying to comfort her. Grace whined again and Anne opened her eyes.

Dawn sent narrow shafts of light through the blinds and across the bedroom floor.

Morning already? Shit.

Her head hurt from the four glasses of wine she drank after arriving home the night before and her stomach ached from skipping dinner. Grace softly whined again and Anne decided she needed to get up and find out what was going on. She rolled over, got out of bed and stumbled towards the bathroom cursing as she went.

 

An hour and nearly half a pot of coffee later, Anne felt like her self again. Grace was finally asleep, wrapped around the legs of stool where Anne sat, fed and content. The morning sun streamed in through the kitchen window, across the floor and left a pool of warmth where Grace lay. Anne reached for the remote and turned on the thirteen inch Sony on the kitchen counter. The small screen was suddenly filled with a view of a dozen flashing police cars and the face of an attractive woman reporter.

 

“…Police are searching this wooded area for clues. They are asking for anyone who thinks they know something about this murder or anyone who might have been driving in the area of Longhill Road last night to call the Connecticut State Barracks in Westbrook at 555-9212. This is Stacy Higgins for WTHV Channel 7.”

The station went to a commercial as Anne stared at the screen, her heart racing wildly inside her chest. Had she heard the reporter correctly?

Murder?

She got up off of the stool carefully so as not to step on Grace, poured herself another cup of coffee, grabbed a small plate and sat back down. She took a blueberry muffin out from underneath the glass domed pedestal and changed the channel, hoping to find out what had happened. But it was Sunday morning and news was hard to come by. She flipped through the channels one by one until eventually she saw the familiar face of a local reporter. She put down the remote and listened.

 

“Early this morning a man was found dead and his wife seriously injured in their car on this remote section of road in Old Lyme. A jogger noticed the still running car and found the elderly couple inside. Police have determined that the man was murdered sometime late last night. I was told by a reliable source inside the Police department that the injured woman claims to have seen a young child in the road but that no other bodies have been found. Police are currently searching the woods around the car. They are asking if anyone has any information or was in the area of Longhill Road last night….”

Anne hit the mute button on the remote. So she had seen a girl last night.

By the time she had arrived home the previous night she had convinced herself that she hadn’t seen anything at all, that it must have been a combination of stress and shadows in the dark. In the stark light of her kitchen she checked the incoming numbers on her cell phone but it turned out no call from her husband had been received. She even went so far as to call the hospital to check on Lee but had been assured that his condition had not changed since she had left the hospital two hours before.  So she thought she had imagined it all, both the young girl and the phone call from Lee. Anne decided to forget about the whole matter and soak in the hot tub with a large glass of Pinot Grigio.

Which turned into four glasses, but who’s counting?

She stared at the silent television screen remembering the blood on the little girl’s tights and dress and a chill went through her. She would have to call the police and tell them what she saw. She pulled open the drawer in the island that held their telephone directory, lifted out the relatively thin book and plopped it down on the counter. She tried to push the drawer closed but something stuck inside. She pulled the drawer back open and saw her husband’s cell phone lying in the bottom of the drawer.  

At first she was afraid to touch it as if it was a foreign object that she had never seen before instead of her husband’s ancient Blackberry.  She did not want to go near it but she needed to know. She took it out of the drawer and quickly set it down on the counter. She tried to turn it on but nothing happened. She stared at it for a moment, tried again but still nothing. The phone was dead.

Of course it’s dead, it’s been sitting in that drawer for nearly seven months where YOU threw it after the accident!

None of this made sense. That phone could have not made a call last night. Anne needed a shower to clear the still remaining cobwebs from her head. She pushed the useless phone back into the drawer, finished her coffee then headed back towards the bathroom.

 

When Anne stepped back into the kitchen the first thing she saw was photograph of the smiling face of the little girl she saw along side the road, splashed across the television screen. There was still no sound and she hurried to grab the remote and turn the volume up. By the time she could hear what they were saying the girl was gone and a dirty looking, middle age man had taken her place.

 

“….. and police found this man hiding in a deserted shack just off of route 156. The body of a young child that police believe belongs to the little girl in the photograph was found with the man. Police also believe that this man may be wanted for questioning in both Maryland and Florida regarding nearly a dozen similar roadside murders.”

Anne muted the television and sat down on the stool as her knees gave out once again. She thought of the man and the woman in the car.

That could have been me. If it hadn’t been for the phone call, it might have been me.

She thought she was going to be sick when the phone hanging on the wall rang. She answered without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Is this Anne Donnelly?”

“Yes.”

“This is Doctor Kramm.”

Anne’s heart sank. What was it now?

“Yes?”

“I wanted to let you know that your husband seems to be waking up.”

      

                                             

The Door

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

            Antigonish - William Hughes Mearns

 

 

 

I don’t know what made me notice The Door.

I suppose it had always been there, quietly waiting for me to become aware of it. I am relatively sure that I have passed by the door quite often since it is on my way, but somehow I always missed it. I find it strange how we go about our daily business, our clever rituals, eyes straight ahead of us, never peeking off to the side, to the dark corners. We spend years staying in line, never straying, never veering. That is how I was, shipshape, my ducks all in a row. Or so I thought. Until yesterday. Yesterday, I saw The Door.

The day started out like every other day for me with no hint of what was to come. I’ve heard people say that you get a premonition, a feeling of déjà vu right before you are slammed with a traumatic event out of nowhere but nothing like that happened to me. There was no glimpse, no feeling of “I oughta stay in bed today,” nothing. Just the old, “same shit, different day,” kinda feeling, you know, where your whole life looks like a big pile of crap laid out in front of you and you can’t find a shovel.

But now I am getting off the subject, I wanna tell you about The Door. I think I need to, just in case.

So, I’m on my way home from work, I walk you see. It’s only a half a dozen blocks and as long as the weather holds out, I can make it in just a few minutes. I work in a bank, back in the accounting department, back where I don’t see too many folks. That’s just fine by me though, I like being alone.

Anyway, it’s a nice afternoon, an Indian Summer kind of day when the warmth of sun still heats up the sidewalk and you can shed your jacket onto the hook of your finger.  I’m walking down the sidewalk, carefully avoiding the jagged, crooked cracks as always, when I see something out of the corner of my eye. I can tell I’m in front of Dillon’s Bookstore because I always have to walk around the Fedex drop off box they got in front of the place so I stop and take a look in the display window. They always put the new releases out in front, carefully stacked up with a shiny new copy leaned up against the tower-o-books so you can see the cover. They added a new book since I went by that morning and picked it out right away.

I guess I need to make it clear that I notice things, I’m real observant and that is why this whole thing with The Door doesn’t make sense. If it was there before, I would have seen it, should have seen it. But I didn’t.

So anyway, I’m standing in front of Dillon’s Bookstore admiring the flashy new copy of Stephen King’s latest novel that’s perched seductively in the window when I notice an odd reflection in the glass pane. At first it’s not clear, sorta like looking at your hand when you hold it beneath the beachwater down on the Jersey shore, wavy and slightly out of focus, you know what I mean. So I stare at it, trying to getting a better look at it.  The books in the window slowly disappear into a gray nothingness and all I see is the fuzzy reflection. It’s strange, I can’t seem to stop trying to figure out exactly what the hell it is, it’s like I am hypnotized or something.

I know what you are saying now, why didn’t I just turn around and look? 

You see, I knew what was behind me. There’s nothing. It’s a vacant lot, been vacant for the twenty years I’ve lived here on Market Street, so I know there ain’t nothing behind me.  My parents lived over on Main Street when I was growing up and I walked by that vacant lot every day on my way to school too. I’ve see folks try to build on that lot over the years but it never works for some reason. “That dog don’t bark,” my mother used to say. The lot’s empty, been empty for as long as I been around and probably a long time before that.

But nonetheless the reflection in the window begged to differ with me. There was something there where there shouldn’t have been.  Something big, something black and I just could not take my eyes off of it so I just kept staring at it until it finally became clear in the glass window.

It was a door.

But it isn’t like it was floating there in mid-air or nothing like that. It seemed solid, grounded, not like you could see the building that it’s attached to but you know the building is there just the same. There are gray steps made of large curved stone leading up to the door and you can even imagine a flagstone walk leading up to those stairs from the sidewalk although none exists, not in this world anyway.

Okay, so I see the door and it’s a big mother f-----g door too.  It’s made of wood, I can tell this even in the reflection and it looks like it’s about a foot thick and at least twenty feet high.  The Door is black, blacker than the ace of spades as my mother would say and there is some kind of weird symbol carved into it. I think I’ve seen that symbol somewhere before so I’m standing there trying to remember where I’ve seen the damn thing, the warm afternoon still shining hot against the side of my face when the air against my back suddenly becomes cold like somebody just opened a refrigerator door behind me. I can also smell the putrid stench of sulfur and I gag as I watch The Door crawl open.

 I didn’t hear The Door screech or yowl as it opened into the sun on Market Street on that beautiful afternoon, not with my ears anyway, but I knew that it did nonetheless.

 It sounded like a scream inside my head.

Now you would have thought I would have turned around about then, just to take a peek but I have to tell you, by this point I was too friggin scared to look at The Door straight on.  I was afraid of it actually being there or worse than that, that it would disappear if I looked away from the glass. I wanted to close my eyes more than anything but I wanted to keep watching even more. It was like driving by a nasty car accident on Interstate 95, you don’t really want to look at the mangled twisted metal and crushed bodies but you just can’t stop yourself. So I just kept on staring.

At first the immense doorway was empty, all I could see beyond the threshold was darkness. It looked like midnight inside there, like a bottomless pit of despair I thought. Then suddenly it seemed to fill up with something much blacker than the emptiness I saw before.

It was a man.

Well, I use that term lightly here, the figure appeared male at least but it filled the massive doorway up with not only it’s enormity but also with it’s mere presence. There was more than just size to him, he was just more there.

He had dark hair, coal black above an ashen face that appeared so pale that if he wasn’t dead, he was missing a hellava opportunity. His eyes burned red and seemed to glow inside of his skull as he stared at me across the empty street. And there was no doubt he was looking at me, after all, I was the only one that could see him and when he smiled at me I felt something warm run down the inside of my leg.

There were teeth in that smile. Lots of them, ugly, yellow bits of crooked bone that looked as if someone had intentionally pulled them out one by one with a pair of rusty pliers then stuck them back in upside down and sideways. The jagged teeth poked out over blood red gums and too full lips in a ghastly death grin and I saw his mouth open to speak.

In the silence inside my head I heard him call my name then everything was gone.

I don’t know how long I lay on the sidewalk before Mr. Dillon woke me up.  It couldn’t have been all that long, the sun was still shining when I opened my eyes. I slowly sat up and felt the dampness of my wet slacks against my inner thigh, thankful that my pants were black and hoping that Mr. Dillon couldn’t smell it. He asked me if I was alright and I told him I thought so, I lied. I was anything but alright, in fact, I was scared shitless but I didn’t want Mr. Dillon, who always looked like Wilford Brimley to me, to think I was crazy so I told him I was just fine, a little lightheaded  from skipping lunch that’s all. Mr. Dillon looked at me a little suspiciously but took me by the arm and shoulder and got me to my feet anyway. I smiled my best fake smile, thanked him for his help and patted his shoulder as I started walking off towards home again.

I didn’t look back at the window of the bookstore and I didn’t look across the street at the vacant lot. I didn’t need to. I know The Door is there. Waiting for me to come by again. Maybe next time the man will invite me inside? I don’t know but maybe tomorrow I will find out. Today is Sunday and I don’t have to make the walk down Market Street to go to work but tomorrow is Monday, after all.

Same shit, different day.