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1
Even
though I trust Maggie to take care of everything, I still worried as I walked
through my door. I threw my briefcase,
my keys, and my wallet on the wall table.
I walked by the kitchen, thinking I should grab a bite to eat because I
might sleep through dinner and beyond.
Nah. Vegging in front of the TV
appealed to me more.
For an apartment, the front hallway stretch
on forever. I took a piss, then slammed
my ass on the sofa and turned on the TV.
I randomly selected a channel (The Movie Channel). The
French Connection was on and it was halfway over. Gene Hackman catches the sniper on his
apartment and chases him down. The
fucking scene lasts for over 15 minutes.
I’d probably be asleep by the end of it.
Something rattled behind me. I jumped up and waited.
Then, in the hallway. Scraping.
Some kind of metal dragging against wood. And it’s digging deep.
I crept to the hallway and peeked out. Whatever it was, I caught the tail end of it
whisking into the kitchen. There,
silverware clattered against each other and pots and pans rang like bells. I tip-toed down the hall. God, this hallway is fucking long.
The noise continue and abruptly stopped
when I got to the kitchen entrance. I
waited some more. Each second ticked
away like an hour. Whoever went in there
would have to leave this way.
This
is like some cliché horror movie. You
hear sounds and you have to check it out.
Walk slowly so the Evil Stuff has a chance to get you. And mind you, the Evil Stuff will always get
you. You can try to run, you can try to
hide, but Evil Stuff will win the fight.
I opened my eyes. Shit, I can’t believe I had them closed in
the first place.
A door slammed. My bedroom.
No more cautiousness. I sprinted and flipped open the door. It was pretty smooth, if I do say so. I popped through the door just as the door
hit the wall.
And nothing.
But the room was freezing. Just like the cellar, except my entire
bedroom was Antartica.
Despite the room being completely shut
down—not completely airtight—I wondered where the draft could be coming
from. I took a couple steps inside. When I did a breeze brushed the back of my
neck.
Then I heard the door clap shut.
I’m
in a bad B-horror movie! I screamed to myself. I shook my head and chuckled. I don’t know what my mind is trying to pull,
but it was getting out of hand.
For one, the ceiling fan was on. That’s probably what was causing all this
cool air in here. I got on my tip-toes,
reached up and snagged the ball of the chain.
And I saw her.
The woman from the forest. The woman Noonan was talking about.
She hovered over me, pressed against the
ceiling. Frighteningly enough, she
looked ready to pounce. To pounce on me.
The fan’s blades whooshed by on the low
setting and I pulled the chain twice more and heard the motor go silent. Should I move? Should I turn the fan back on high hoping the
wind will blow her out of my fucking bedroom?
Should I scream like a girl—
Those were the worst choice of words I could
have thought.
Softly at first, a guttural squeal hit my
ears. If it was any other sound, I might
not have been bothered, but this squeal was different.
Fear.
I plugged each ear with my index fingers,
but I still heard it like I hadn’t done so.
Then it got louder.
And more fear.
“Stoooopppp!” I picked up the closest thing I could nab—my
$3.99 alarm clock from Big Lots—and hurled it at her.
Fucking useless.
The clock slapped into the ceiling and came
crashing down in pieces and broke into more pieces when it hit the floor. The display blinked
Then the woman floated down and angled
herself until she was vertical. Once
again, like this morning, standing in front of me.
And yet I was entranced. Not captivated or mesmerized, but entranced. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
She looked at me, then backed herself to
the window. After letting out one quick
high-pitched shriek, she dissipated through the wall.
2
I
had a headache, I realized, and made my way to the bathroom.
I rummaged through my medicine cabinet,
knocking bottles into the sink and my container of Q-tips onto the floor.
“Fuck…”
But I had no enthusiasm to care.
I found some Bayer and dumped some pills
into my had. I would have taken whatever
landed in my palm, but deep down was grateful only 4 of the 800 milligram
things was there.
After popping them into my mouth, I leaned
down and slurped water from the faucet. You’ll get germs and diseases, my mom
would say. Well, fuck her right now, I got
a throbbing headache like someone is taking a dull saw to my head.
It was time to lay down.
3
Each tree I touched is wet and cold even
though it is 90 degrees outside. I see
my campsite, torn to shreds. Surrounding
trees spotted with blood. Who’s? I touched the blood...fresh. I could still see it dripping onto the
ground.
“William!” a woman’s shout.
I
spin towards the direction it came from.
“William!
No!”
I
run. I run, scared, but knowing I should
run.
“Stay
away!” this time it was a man. “Stay
away from her!”
My
feet get heavy and I start to slow.
What’s happening? Am I in mud?
No. To much brush? No. My
feet are simply getting heavy. I bear
forward, but that doesn’t help.
I
hear more shouting both from the woman and the man and it sounds frantic. But if I’m to save them or help them I sure
am taking my own fucking sweet time getting there.
Finally,
I break through a thick line of trees, a barrier…
And
I see my mother and father in a small circular clearing. My mother is cowering at the base of an
evergreen greet while my father holds out a cross. From my vantage it is the cross given to him
by my grandmother. It is the size of my
forearm and made of pure mahogany…no fake stuff. A gold circle with a gold cross of it’s own
is inlaid at the intersection. But why
is it used—
I
gaze to my left and see—
--I
try to move, but I am planted. Why and
how still a mystery--
A
cloud of mist forming a cone and racing up to the sky. Then nothing.
My
father drops his guard and rushes to my mother.
He kneels and holds her torso up.
“You
okay?” he asks.
She
nods, but it’s a weak nod. She’s not
okay.
I
can move now and I run to their sides.
“What’s
wrong?” I ask.
They
don’t answer.
“What’s
wrong!!?” I ask again.
My
father tries to lift her up.
“Don’t,”
she says, “I can’t feel anything in my body.”
“Your
legs? You can’t move?” My father tries lifting her again.
“No. I can’t feel anything inside
my body. I can’t feel my heart
beating.” She leans back against the
tree.
My
father slumps to the ground and takes my mother’s hand. He’s defeated.
“Dad! No!
Get her to the hospital!”
I bend over and take my mom’s…
--oh
god please no, I need my mom—
And
my hand slides right on through her body.
“No…mom…”
But
in the next second her eyes roll up and her chest stops moving.
My
father knows and silently stands. He
jabs his hands under my mother and lifts her up.
I
cry.
I
watch my father walk into the edge of the forest—
4
And I am sweating.
Crying and sweating.
What a dream. I sat up, squinting so my eyes adjust from
sleep. It took a minute, but soon I saw
that I was alone and I relaxed a bit.
I looked over to check the time but see
that my clock is not there. My stomach
dropped because I realize where it is. I
glanced at the floor. Sure enough the
clock mocks me. Haha fucker. You used me to
defend yourself and now I’ll never show you the time again. That’s what you get.
No, what I get is wondering what time it
is.
I used the pillow to wipe the sweat from my
forehead and back of my neck, then get out of bed. The mess will come later. Right now I need something to drink.
Nothing hard. Just to quench my dream-caused thirst.
5
I pulled a beer out and twisted off the
top. The swig was heaven, like silk
being draped over my esophagus.
The clock over the sink read
“
My people know that when I say that I’m
going home for the afternoon on Tuesday, I don’t really mean it. And today was no different. Maggie no doubt had everything to the
printers by now. I think I just wanted
to go to the paper and relax.
That’s right, I’m going to my job to relax.
I called Maggie and told her and she wasn’t
shocked I planned on coming back in. She
asked if there was anything I wanted her to do, but I said that everyone can go
home. I wanted the office to myself.
6
I
turned the last corner before the Gazette’s building and saw that it was
blocked half way down. Most normal
people would have yelled out a “Come on!
Someone had better of died up there” and waited, but not me. I run a newspaper.
As I approached the blockade of police cars
(both Bobby’s and two county cruisers), a fire engine, and an ambulance, I
realized that they were in front of Miss Molly’s house. I raced closer and jumped out. I headed to the lawn.
Bobby must have seen me because he was
coming to intercept me.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
He looked back, then guided me back to my
car. “Fuckin’ county’s here,” he
muttered. “Some asshole called county instead of me.”
“That
doesn’t make him an ass—“
“Yes it does. Their fingers are going to be in it
now.” He sighed. “I didn’t want that.”
“Bobby.
What about here? Why are they
here?”
“Miss Molly.”
“She okay?”
“No…she…” and he couldn’t say it. A shake in his voice, a blubber. I watched his eyes well up. Any other time I’d be pressed to spew a quip
which would spark some sarcastic comment from Bobby and we’d go toe to toe—or
word for word—for a few minutes before getting irritated with each other. But now, I felt a little compassion for him.
“Is she dead?” I finally asked. I knew the answer already.
“Yes, she is.”
“How?”
Again, he looked back. “No one knows,” he said.
“Any clues at all? Come on Bobby, help me out here.”
“Grant, settle down. I don’t know anything and neither does
county. We all just got here…well,
county first of course.”
I glanced behind him and saw a few county
cops leaving the house. One shaking his
head, but not in disgust or fear or anything, but more like I really don’t have a fucking clue.
“Maybe I can take a look. Get an objective view—“
Bobby shook his head. “Not right now. Wait until later. I’ll let you go in tonight.”
“Sure.”
“Just do me a favor and go. I’ll call you when it’s clear.”
Was he going to really let me go in there
later? I had a slight distrust in him
actually carrying out his promise. We’ll
see later I guess.
“Don’t forget.”
He grunted, which I assumed was an ‘okay’
and left, heading back towards the house.
7
The
air was shut off when I walked through the Gazette’s front door. And it was damn humid in here. I let the door shut behind me, then
immediately went to the thermostat and clicked it down to 70 degrees. I heard the air kick on.
My office invited me. I had missed it all afternoon. I shut the door and everything went
quiet. To me, this is solace.
But what wasn’t solace was the silver
hairbrush sitting on my desk. The hair
brush that Bobby showed me earlier today.
The hair brush that now mocked me, grinning it’s evil I’ve got you now smile in case I would
forget that a piece of evidence found near a body was sitting on my desk.
Calm
down Grant. Just figure it out. Be a reporter, like in the old days.
The old days? Shit, that was only like 3 years ago. Surely I could remember how to
investigate. Maybe becoming an editor
has made me soft.
--shut up shut up shut up concentrate--
First, how did the brush get here. That was the all-important question. Someone must have brought it over. So who?
The office is locked and only myself and Maggie have a key. Problem, Maggie has no idea about the brush
or any of the ‘issues’ of the past day.
So she couldn’t have done it.
Magic?
The Great and Wonderful Appearing Hairbrush of the Grandmother
Noonan? Not likely.
So the first question isn’t answered.
Then Second, why is the brush here? Did Bobby play a joke? An unfunny tasteless joke that really doesn’t
make any sense. Why would he play the
joke on me? Or maybe this brush isn’t
even here at all.
I closed my eyes then reopened them. Sure enough the brush was still her.
Still mocking.
I’ve
got you now.
“Fuck you.”
Yeah that’s it. Curse at the
inanimate object. That’s really
editor-like.
But it did have me now because I couldn’t
explain how it got here or why it was here.
And there was still when it got here, who it belongs to, where it had
been before it was on my desk, but fuck the 5 w’s and H. I couldn’t answer the obvious questions so
who the hell did I think I was to answer the other ones.
I should call Bobby and tell him the brush
is here. Maybe after I get into Miss
Molly’s house and see what was going on there.
I grabbed some newspaper and used that to
grab the hairbrush. Then I unlocked my
cabinet—which I only have the key to—and placed it far in the back. I shut the drawer and locked it.
Then checked it again to make sure it was
locked. I didn’t want anyone to find
this. No one really had no reason to be
in this cabinet, but I guess I got a flash of OCD.
7
My
desk phone rang.
“Who—“
I picked it up. “Hello?”
“Get over here.”