The Four Before Me

by E H Night

  “Oh, it’s okay. I can throw it away when I get inside,” she said, reaching for the cup again.

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll toss it when I get home.”

  Confused by his insistence, but still agreeable, Alice shrugged and opened the car door. She stepped out onto the wet sidewalk and shielded the top of her head with her hands while the purse hung clumsily from her shoulder. “Thanks again!” she called back to him.

  Benji rolled the window down once more. “Do you want me to walk you to the door?” he shouted.

  Alice looked behind her, even more confused. The house was only a few feet from the road. “Uh… I think I can handle it. I’ll see ya around, I’m sure!”

  He nodded with a frown and looked back at the road. The wheels of his car turned, and he drove away into the rainy night.

  Alice made stepped inside the house and locked the door. There was something strange about that man, but she still couldn’t figure out what it was. He seemed overly assertive, or even aggressive, but also… friendly?

  “Maybe I’m reading him wrong,” she thought. “Maybe I’m the one who’s being weird.”

  She headed into the kitchen and sat her purse on the counter to unload her library snacks. Seeing all of the baked goods again made her stomach growl, so she decided to make a late lunch. After all, she hadn’t eaten a real meal all day. Her hand reached ahead and she grabbed the refrigerator door to reveal what was inside.

  “Milk. Eggs. Cheese. Old takeout.”

  She grabbed the carton of fried rice that had been bought two nights before. She opened the flaps and looked inside, sniffing the contents.

  “This will have to do, I guess.”

  She popped the carton into the microwave and leaned against the counter, waiting for the food heat up. The lights flickered a few times. The microwave buzzed strangely, suddenly unable to properly produce currents, and it ceased to function. Just as quickly, the room went dark, and the power went out in the entire house.

  Alice cursed the house’s electrical issues as she made her way down the basement stairs with a flashlight. Usually, it was only one or two rooms that would lose power at a time, so she was more frustrated than ever. The breaker was one of the only things in the basement that had remained dust-free due to all of the attention it had been getting since she had moved in. It seemed like every few days, something would cause it to kick, and she would have to go down the stairs to reset it again.

  She flipped the switch off and on and everything became bright once more. While turning to go back up the stairs, the cardboard box in the corner caught her attention again, so she walked toward it instead. Her hands fumbled around with the top for a moment, and she batted a few cobwebs out of the way. She reached inside and sat a stack of photographs in her lap. There were still a lot of things in the box, but she decided that she’d look through those things later. Sarah’s face had been haunting her thoughts ever since that strange dream, and she needed to see it smiling and lively again to shake the tainted images away. The top few photos were the ones that she’d already seen. She continued to go through them, and placed each one on the floor beside her after it had been examined.

  A photo of Betty made its way to the top of the stack. Alice was surprised to see a well-kempt and happy looking woman staring back at her. Betty’s short black hair was curled and teased nicely. She wore a pair of white sunglasses on top of her head like a headband, pulling all of her hair back except for the fluffy feathered bangs that covered her forehead. A blue swimsuit clung to her body, paired with bright white cotton shorts, and a smile was cemented across her face, from cheek to cheek. Sarah was standing next to her, with one of her arms wrapped tightly across her mother’s shoulder. She wore a loose floral sundress, and her only accessory was a short silver necklace.

  Alice moved on to the next photo. This one showed only Sarah, and it had been taken much closer up than the previous one. The necklace was a lot clearer than before. Its silver chain shined with tiny embedded crystals. A pale lavender pendant sparkled as the light hit the glossy paper, and Alice recognized it immediately as the one that Grandma Susan used to wear.

  She jumped up, still holding the photo, and accidentally dropped the remaining ones to the floor. They dispersed like dry autumn leaves. There was an older picture of her grandma in her wallet upstairs, and she wanted to compare the two necklaces in the photos side by side to confirm. The jewelry had been a wedding gift from her grandma’s father, so it would have been really strange, or even impossible, for Sarah to have owned the same one.

  “Surely, there has to be some sort of difference between them.”

  Once to her feet, she took a few steps forward toward the stairs. The floor began to wobble in front of her, and it felt as if she were standing upright on a small boat in a large and angry sea. Her hand reached out beside her, and she tried to steady her weight against the cold concrete wall.

  “What’s happening?” she wondered as she scaled the wall the rest of the way to the stairs.

  She dropped to her knees and started to crawl up each creaky piece of wood instead. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel the room spinning and curving. Still, she continued up the steps, one by one, reaching ahead of herself, carefully. Just as her knees had passed over the third step from the bottom, a thin piece of wood shoved itself inside of her palm. Instinctively, she brought it up to her chest and her other hand let go to apply pressure to wound. In a panic, she raised to her feet, and her body grew even more unsteady than before.

  She felt herself floating along the room’s current. Only air was beneath her in that moment, until the she crashed to the floor like a wave hitting the side of a cliff.

  Her eyes closed and opened multiple times as she tried to get them to focus on something, on anything. She rolled over onto her back and looked up toward the top of the stairs. In between blinks, she was able to make out the looming silhouette of someone tall staring down at her from the kitchen.

  Her eyes closed one more time.

  Chapter 10

  “Clue”

  Alice woke to find Tiffany crouching above her, slapping her frantically and repeatedly in the face. Her red hair shined like a brand new penny beneath the yellow-toned basement lights. She tried to lift her arms to stop the smacking, but stopped when she felt her shoulders aching. Her back felt like it was a single gigantic bruise.

  “Come on! Hey!” Tiffany yelped as she tapped against Alice’s cheeks. “Alice, wake up!”

  Alice pushed through the discomfort and finally managed to swat one of the hands away from her face. She groaned and turned her head to look beside her. The photo of Sarah, wearing the necklace, was within reach, so she grabbed it out of fear of losing or damaging it in any way.

  “You’re awake. Oh goodness, I thought you’d died or something.” Tiffany leaned back and sat cross-legged on the floor. Her sneakers were caked in dirt and mud, as if she’d been working outside the entire day. A loud exhale escaped from her mouth, and she sighed even more while she ran her hands through her messy hair.

  “How’d you get in here?” Alice asked with a groggy sleep-filled voice. “I thought I locked the door.”

  “Uh, no you didn’t. That’s exactly why I ran over here. Your back door was wide open.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Yeah. I was in my yard, pulling dandelions from the flowerbed and looked up at your place. Your door was open, so I walked over and called for you to see what you were up to. You didn’t answer. I guess I got worried or something, so I went into the kitchen and saw that the basement door was wide open too. And there you were, at the bottom of the steps.” She looked around, still uncomfortable with the entire situation. “Did you just fall or something? I mean, like, are you okay?” she asked.

  Alice sat up slowly, moaning uncomfortably as she used her arms to straighten her posture. She faced Tiffany, and mirrored her cross-legged pose. “I — I really don’t know what happened. I think I’m okay though...”
She looked around the basement to confirm that her vision was back to normal, and then continued answering the questions. “I came down here to reset the breaker, but then I got really dizzy when I tried to go back up. The room was spinning like crazy, like I was really drunk or something. I made it up a few of the steps, but fell backwards, I think.” She rubbed her forehead, hoping to dull the pain of the lingering headache.

  “You didn’t hit your head, did you?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It hurts, but not like that.”

  Tiffany leaned in and looked directly into Alice’s eyes. “You wait right here, okay? Don’t try to go up the stairs again or anything. I’m going to call the cops and —”

  “No, don’t call them. They’ll just take me to the hospital, and I really don’t want to deal with that right now. I’ll be fine. I just have a few bruises.”

  “Well, we can just act like nothing happened. You said your doors were locked when you came down here. Obviously, someone or something had to open them.”

  Alice nodded, agreeingly. “You’re right. Let’s not make a scene though. The people around here already have enough to talk about. If you go look at the fridge, Detective Darrow’s number is there under a magnet. Give him a call and see if he can stop by.”

  “You’re sure you don’t need an ambulance?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back in a minute then. Don’t budge.”

  Tiffany ran upstairs, and Alice put her head in her hands. She tried to remember the details of exactly what had happened before the fall, but everything was fuzzy.

  ◆

  Alice could hear Detective Darrow’s voice coming from the living room, along with the familiar sound of his boots hitting the floor. She had disregarded Tiffany’s command to stay put and lifted her bruised bones up each step. It was a much easier task now that she had clear vision again, even with a headache. Once at the top, she peeked around the corner and into the kitchen to check the time.

  6:00 PM.

  “How had three hours gone by since I got home? Was I really asleep down there that long?” she wondered.

  Her head continued to throb. She took a few more quiet steps into the kitchen and then dropped to her knees. A sharp high-pitched ringing sound stabbed her eardrums, practically immobilizing her for a moment. She looked up and saw Tiffany and Detective Darrow hurrying in her direction. Through the ringing, she could tell from their voices that they were very concerned.

  “Alice! I told you to stay down there. You could have fallen again!” Tiffany yelled as she stooped down to the floor to grab Alice’s shoulders.

  Detective Darrow clicked a tiny flashlight on and lifted Alice’s head up by the chin. He shined the light across her eyes several times, back and forth. He kept his hand there until she eventually pulled away.

  “Alice?” he asked, with deep concern in his voice.

  Instead of answering, she brought herself up on all fours and heaved onto the kitchen tiles. Brown froth poured out all over the floor and onto her hands. It seeped along the lines of grout, and made its way to her knees. She heaved again, and again, until several ounces of foamy liquid had covered the tile around her.

  Tiffany jumped back and raised herself to her feet to escape the mess. Detective Darrow’s instincts were different though. He wrapped his arms around Alice’s waist, and pulled her up to his chest. His bare hands pushed her wet brown hair away from her face, and he yelled over to Tiffany.

  “Grab some towels and meet me in the bathroom! We need to get her cooled off.”

  Tiffany nodded and ran into the hallway to rummage for some in the closet. “I found a few!” she yelled back to him.

  Detective Darrow stood up and bent down into a squatting position. He lifted Alice up to her feet, and wrapped one of her arms across his shoulder and neck to help support her weight. Slowly, he guided her out of the kitchen, through the hallway, and into the bathroom.

  Her ears had stopped ringing, and she felt defeated. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered once they had reached the shower. “Oh God, this is so embarrassing.”

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We just need you to feel better, okay?” He turned to look at Tiffany. “Help her if she needs it. Stay in here — I’ll take care of the kitchen.”

  “Got it,” she said, understanding his commands, and being annoyed by them at the same time. Of course she was going to help Alice. She wasn’t an idiot.

  Detective Darrow grabbed a couple of the towels and shuffled out of the room.

  Tiffany helped Alice into the shower and closed the curtain behind her. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll just wait here. You can have your privacy.”

  “Thanks, Tiff. I’m really okay. I think it’s just a migraine or something. I used to get them when I was a teen. They’ve just never been this bad before.”

  “Hopefully that’s all it is. I told the cop about the door though. He looked pretty worried.”

  “The landlord came over not too long ago and fixed the lock. I wonder if it broken again or something. Maybe it just flung open,” Alice replied.

  “Maybe, maybe not. I think Darrow is really eager to find out though. This is the most serious I’ve ever seen the guy.”

  “I remember something though. I’ll show you when I finish getting this puke out of my hair,” she said while she scrubbed the grime away. “I found a picture of Sarah down there —”

  “Yeah? What picture?” Tiffany asked.

  “It looked like she was on vacation with her mom. She had on a necklace that looked identical to the one my grandma used to wear.”

  “Lots of people have similar jewelry, Alice. There’s only so much you can do to make a necklace look unique without turning it into a huge mess.”

  “I know, but this was an antique. It just seemed odd to me that she would have the same one. My grandma was from this town too, so I thought maybe they could have known each other somehow.”

  “I guess so. I wouldn’t focus on that too much right now. We just need you to get better for now. Oh, how about this!” She clapped excitedly from the toilet seat. “You can stay over at my place tonight. We’ll sit back, relax, eat some pizza… or uh… just crackers… and watch some movies. I’ll go rent a few tapes after you get dressed!”

  “Okay, that’d be nice. I’d rather not be alone right now anyway.”

  “Yeah, I kind of don’t want to be either.”

  Alice finished her shower and reached for the towel. Tiffany guided her out of the tub to make sure she didn’t slip, and then went to the kitchen. She saw that Detective Darrow had cleaned everything up and had been pacing nervously next to a small pile of dirty towels.

  “I checked the doors. It looks like something happened to the doorknob in the back. It didn’t look like anyone tampered with it or anything though. The latch just won’t engage. Anything could’ve pushed that thing open.”

  “She mentioned that her landlord came out to fix it a while ago.”

  “Well, he did a pretty bad job,” Detective Darrow replied. “I’ll run to the hardware store and get some things to replace it tonight.”

  Tiffany nodded. “I’m having her stay with me anyway. Just come over and knock when you’re done.”

  “Alright. That sounds like a good plan.”

  ◆

  The following morning, Alice felt much better. The bruises still lingered and her muscles felt pretty sore, but she was determined to make the best of the day. With Saturday gone, Sunday was all she had left until the work week started again. The Salon was closed on Sundays anyway, but Edna had compassion for the youthful and always gave her the full weekend off.

  “Don’t waste the best days of the week workin’,” she’d told her when they had discussed an appropriate schedule. “You can’t ask for your youth back once it leaves you, but money can always show up no matter how old you get.”

  Alice smiled at the thought. She grabbed her purse from the living room table, and
folded the blanket that she had used to keep warm. “Want me to put this anywhere in particular, or should I just toss it back on the couch?” she asked.

  Tiffany shrugged from the quilted chair across the room and looked up from her magazine. “Don’t worry about it. You can leave it wherever. I fall sleep over there while watching TV half of the time anyway.”

  Alice placed the blanket back on the couch and walked toward the front door. She checked her purse for her keys, and gave a small wave in Tiffany’s direction. “Thanks again for looking out for me. We should have a girls’ night out soon. I think we could both use some drinks.”

  “That’d be nice. Just let me know what night works for you.”

  “Yep, will do! I’ll talk to ya later then.”