by C. K. Walker
At 11:30 I called again, and this time someone sent it to voicemail. I still didn't worry too much. I'd talked to Dani before her flight left that morning and she'd told me Stella hadn’t come by to pick up the girls until 8:15 and that she’d planned to get the kids some breakfast before she got on the road. A 2 hour drive would put her in close to 11 but my wife was a slow and careful driver.
At noon I started to pace around my office trying Stella's cell phone off and on.
By 1 p.m. I was a wreck.
At 1:14 I got a frantic call from Paul about a voicemail he'd received from Izzy. I immediately called the police and reported my wife missing and the phone call from inside the car. A woman called me back after the longest 40 minutes of my life. She told me there had been an accident and that they were sending someone to my house.
Everything that made me human had suddenly been stripped away from me. I lost everything that day.
Paul and Dani flew back from Cancun that night and got the news right when they landed. Paul had to be sedated at the airport. Dani was just numb.
Someone brought me what was left of our personal effects from the crash: Emma’s suitcase and Stella’s overnight bag. All the others had been destroyed in the accident.
Stella's body was too badly burned to do any conclusive toxicology on her. No one had any idea what had happened to my wife, why she’d been behaving so strangely or how she lost control of the car. The investigation went on until December of 2012 when the case was closed by DPS. No one knew what happened to Stella but the general consensus, all evidence accounting, was that some sort of medical event had occurred on the day of the crash: possibly a stroke or a series of strokes.
I fought hard to clear Stella's name in the press; they painted her as a drunk and a pill popper. The media also compared her case to something that had happened in New York a few years earlier, the Schuler case. But Stella didn't drink - ever - or take pills recreationally and she loved her children more than the air she breathed. I hired a private investigator and a lawyer to help me get her body exhumed and retested. Afterward I was told the results were similar to the first tests but that this time the ME had ruled her secondary cause of death “Vehicle Crash due to an Unknown Medical Event".
The press finally back off.
Paul killed himself just before Christmas the same year of the accident. Dani told me he locked himself in his office every day and listened to Izzy's voicemail over and over until one day he hung himself from a cross beam in his daughter’s room.
Dani and I bonded deeply in our grief. We had both lost so much, almost everything. We talked and cried and suffered together for years. And all along Stella's suitcase sat in my closet. I could never bring myself to unpack it - to unpack her - from my life. But then Dani moved in with me and my soul began to mend. And for the first time since the accident, I could see ahead of the agonizing pain to a more tolerable existence. I was finally ready to let it all go, to let her go. To emerge from under the crippling darkness into a dull, muted light that I knew would grow brighter with time.
And so one day, I opened the suitcase. And found out what really happened to Stella that day.
On top of my wife’s neatly folded clothes was a note she had written to me in black marker. It was only six words, six short words that cast me back into hell, never to return. I know about you and Dani.
It was written on a liquor store receipt.
CHRISTMAS MAGIC
Mom says you have to believe in Santa if you want presents on Christmas.
Sometimes I find this hard to do, like when I see Santa at the mall and he looks different from the Santa I saw last year. If I mention this to my mom she tells me never to talk about that. She says if I do, I won’t get any presents on Christmas. She told me to always assume that it's just Santa’s Christmas magic at work.
Last Christmas I took my little sister to the park. I had snow ball fights with my friends while she built a snow man.
We saw Santa at the park that day. He came over and handed each of us little, wrapped presents. He told us that we were all good boys and girls. He told my sister that her present was in his sleigh because it was too big to carry. He asked her to help him.
My sister went with him, but she never came back. The police officers asked us so many questions but we all insisted it was just Santa - big, jolly and red. That was all we knew.
People were sad that my sister went with Santa so I got lots of presents that year. I'm so glad I didn't tell anyone that Santa had looked a lot like our neighbor, Mr. Wilkens. And I'm glad I didn't tell them that I saw my sister get into his blue pick-up truck instead of a sleigh. Mom says never to talk about that stuff, that it's just Santa's Christmas magic at work. And she says you have to believe in Santa’s magic if you want presents on Christmas.
IT COMES ON CHRISTMAS
I never thought I'd be here again: sitting in a foreign police station with tear stains on my cheeks and a cup of cold coffee in my hands. I feel numb. I feel dead.
Dan has been separated from me for questioning, just as he was 7 years before, though this time the detectives speak English instead of Portuguese.
All we’d wanted was to take Amelia on a quiet Christmas holiday out of the country, and away from the public eye. She was having a very difficult time adjusting to her first year of primary school. And even though she was only five, the press would find her now and again and ask her horrible questions that always left her in tears.
Amelia has learned over the years that she lives in a large, empty shadow.
Seven years ago, while we were on holiday in Brazil, Amelia's older sister disappeared on Christmas Eve. Linny had been six at the time and Amelia not yet born.
Linny was never found.
I remember, all those years ago, walking back to the hotel from the lounge to check on Linny. I remember opening the door to the sound of the TV blaring Nightline in the small sitting area. I remember stumbling down the hallway, bubbly and a bit drunk, eager to get back to the party.
I remember opening Linny's door. I remember being confused. I remember yelling her name over and over. And I remember Dan, pulling me up off the floor some minutes later.
That night begat a long, fruitless and very high profile search for our daughter. The investigation was a circus: the police focused on all the wrong people, evidence was overlooked or mishandled, and Dan and I were judged guilty in the court of public opinion. Everyone thought we knew more than we said.
But we didn't.
We are, admittedly, very wealthy people. Our children have always been spoiled rotten. We spared no luxuries for ourselves. The public loved to hate us. And every intimacy of our lives was torn wide open for all to see.
It took less than a month for our affairs to come out in the press. Publicly Dan and I declared we had a mutually agreed upon open marriage. But privately we grew to hate each other. The lies and the secrets overwhelmed us.
It was only when we had Amelia two years later that we fell back in love. Our names were finally cleared as suspects when she turned three, though suspicion remained. Linny's case disappeared into the empty darkness of the cold world, just as Linny herself had. Old wounds were beginning to heal. Our lives were becoming livable again. My husband and I loved each other. Amelia had a future.
Until tonight.
I'd only gone down to the bar for a moment, just enough time to hand Dan his wallet and have a quick chat with new friends. I wanted to return to out room quickly. Dan and I were understandably overcautious about leaving Amelia but I also needed to fill her stocking and place her presents under out makeshift Christmas tree.
She had looked so peaceful, sleeping there on our bed. I hadn't wanted to wake her. I locked the door behind me, telling myself that I would be quick.
The feeling began gnawing at me in the elevator on the way back up to our floor. I pushed it away as unfounded paranoia. But when the elevator dinged and the doors opened on our floor, I knew: something was t
erribly wrong.
I ran down the hallway to our room where the door remained locked. I slid my keycard through the reader and threw the door open violently.
Amelia wasn't on the bed. I called her name and looked for her everywhere as tears poured down my cheeks.
And then I screamed. I screamed and screamed until hotel security was called.
It was several hours before I came out of my shock. I was sitting in the police station, they were asking me questions. They told me Dan was down the hall and that everyone in the hotel with access to our room was being questioned. But my little girl is gone. She's gone forever, just like Linny. And now I realize there is no hope. Now I know the police will never find her, just like her sister.
I can finally admit it now, to myself; I have no choice: the night Linny disappeared I did see something. I remember that I didn’t tell anyone because I’d been drunk at the time and it was such an impossible thing.
But then I saw it again tonight. And now I know what happened to my daughter all those years ago.
You see, I remember walking into the Linny's room. I remember seeing the empty bed. I remember calling her name. And I remember the dark figure that was standing in the corner of her room.
And it wasn't a human being.
The creature was impossibly tall with a long face, pale yellow eyes, and the hooves and antlers of a goat. He held an unconscious Linny under his arm and muffled screaming was coming from a large burlap sack he carried on his back.
I remember dropping to my knees. I yelled at the thing that my daughter wasn’t naughty, she was spoiled - it was my fault, take me instead. But the creature just hissed at me, and seemed to laugh, and by the time Dan found me the thing was gone.
But I hadn’t believed any of this had really happened. I'd thought of myself as a sad, hallucinating drunk until tonight. But then this evening, I saw him again. Not in the corner of the room or in the shadows, no, I'd seen him clear as day - in the mirror. Amelia's body was tucked under his arm and the small hands of children were reaching out from the familiar burlap sack on his back.
They were still screaming.
ROOM 733
The Suicide Room. That's what they called room 733 - as if I didn't have enough to worry about on my first day as a freshman.
We had assigned to dorm room 734 which, it turns out, wasn’t one of the nice add-on rooms in the south hall. No, we found ourselves in the older wing of the building on the 7th floor. I wasn’t too bummed out, though; at least they’d honored my request to room with my best friend.
Lydia and I spent most of the morning moving ourselves in. By the time our Resident Advisor came by I was taping up posters and Lydia was reading.
"Hi girls, I'm Beth!" chirped the bubbly blonde girl as she bounded into our room. "I'll be your RA this year."
"Hi," I nodded at her.
"Wow, you girls really work fast,” she said taking in our made beds and hung up clothes.
Beth picked up a drawing of Cthulhu that Lydia had done over the summer. She turned it sideways, studying it.
"Is this the kraken from Pirates of the Caribbean?"
Lydia glared at her over the top of her book.
"So anyway,” the RA continued, “I know our hall isn't as new as the south hall but trust me, there's a lot of history here. This building is almost 60 years old."
"Yes, I can see that." I said looking around. "The rooms are pretty small."
"Well, people were smaller in the 50s." Beth shrugged.
"Really." Lydia said flatly.
"Yep, really." Beth pursed her lips and just continued to stand there, while the room filled with awkward silence.
"So," I said, "the corner room next to us - 733, is it? It looks a lot bigger than our room. Is anyone assigned to that room or could we maybe-"
"Oh, you don't want that room.” Beth interrupted. "There were a couple suicides in there. A hanging and a jumper if I remember right. They’re not assigning anyone to that room. Anyway, I'd just like to remind you that this is an all-girls floor and guys are not allowed up here after 11."
Before we could reply to her Beth clapped her hands and with a quick "well, nice meeting you" she skipped out of the room.
Lydia dropped her book on the bed and stared out into the hall. "I hate her."
"Did you hear that bomb she fucking dropped?"
"I'm going to call her Dumbshit Beth."
"Lydia, seriously. Suicides?"
"Oh, Becca, relax. Every college campus has a few suicides."
"Yeah, but in the same room?"
Lydia sighed. "Really, who cares? It's not our room."
"Yeah, I guess." I turned to study the little window in our room. "Can you imagine climbing out of that tiny window and jumping? You'd be alive for at least five seconds before you hit the ground."
"Oh, fuck, Becca, can you not?" Lydia glanced at the window and visibly shuddered. "You know I fucking hate heights and just talking about that shit is raising my blood pressure."
"We could always move into the suicide room," I teased her, "That one has a window on each wall."
"Fuck you."
"Okay, okay. But seriously, think about it. It would take a lot of commitment to squeeze out of that tiny window."
"Yeah, well, remember, people were apparently smaller back then." Lydia mumbled as she pushed her bed further away from the window.
*
Since Lydia was an outgoing and friendly person, we made friends at lightning speed. There were a lot of parties in those first few weeks, at one of which Lydia inevitably met a guy. I'd known the girl since we were in diapers so I fully anticipated her having a boyfriend by the end of September. His name was Mike and he wasn't anything special; just your standard frat pledge douche canoe.
After about a month on campus the novelty of college started wearing off. Lydia and I found our stride and we spent more weekends studying than drinking. Midterms were coming up in a couple weeks and I was determined to maintain a 4.0 GPA throughout my freshman year.
One night in early October I was woken up by a loud, grinding sound. I sat up in bed and strained to hear it again. Lydia was also wide awake and listening.
SLAM
What the fuck? She mouthed to me.
It wasn't unusual for there to be noise in the hallways since other people came in at all hours of the night. But this sound had definitely come from next door - the corner room.
GRIND
"Is that-"
"Yeah," Lydia whispered. "That's the window next door."
At Lydia's insistence, we kept our window closed at all times. However, there was no mistaking the sound of the window in room 733 being opened and closed again at regular intervals.
SLAM
"Who's in there?"
Lydia shrugged.
"Is someone fucking with us? Is this like initiation?"
Lydia raised her eyebrow at me. "Initiation to what?"
"I don't know. College? Maybe they're hazing the freshman?"
GRIND (it opened)
"Who is hazing freshman?"
I shrugged.
SLAM (it shut)
"Becca, I love you, but that was fucking stupid."
I threw a pillow at her. "Well, whoever it is, go tell them to knock it the fuck off."
"Me?! I'm not risking being thrown out a window."
GRIND
"Well, I'm not doing it!"
"I'm an art major. You're a political science major. YOU go lay down the law."
"Fuck that."
"Then call Dumbshit Beth. Isn't this the kind of nonsense she should deal with?"
SLAM
"I’m not calling her. Don't you put that evil on me."
"Fine," Lydia whispered loudly, "then we'll just have to ignore it."
"I have class at 7:30!" I whispered.
GRIND
"Then do something!"
"Ugh!" I got out of bed and stomped to the door, threw it open dramatically and went down t
he hall to pound on the door to room 733 which simply said 'Supply Room'.
"People are trying to sleep, please fucking stop." I said when there was no answer.
SLAM
"Dude, seriously..." I sighed.
I stepped back from the door and immediately noticed problem. Room 733 was padlocked shut from the outside. I hurried back to my room.
"What happened?" Lydia asked.
"I'm not going anywhere near that fucking room, again. It's locked from the outside; I don't know how anybody could get in there."
"So, you’re saying it's a spooky ghost?" She laughed.
"No, I’m saying there is creepy shit going on inside a room colloquially called ‘the Suicide Room’.”
Lydia scoffed and rolled over to go back to sleep. "You should have been a drama major."
We didn’t hear the window next door again that night but the next morning you could clearly see from outside that both windows in the corner room were now wide open.
*
I watched the windows on room 733 for an entire week but they remained open. Occasionally at night I thought I could hear a noise next door liked marbles dropping and rolling across the floor. Since it never woke Lydia up, I didn’t bother to say anything.
One afternoon I was alone in the dorm editing notes on my laptop. I had my headphones in but the music wasn’t loud enough to cover the noise of someone knocking on the door.
"Come in," I said without looking up from the screen.
A moment went by and then heard I heard the knocking again. I jerked my earbuds out and slammed the laptop closed.
I turned around, "Come-"
What the fuck? The door to the hallway was wide open. I'd left it open on purpose since Ian (a junior I was dating) was supposed to be stopping by. I heard the knocking again from behind me and literally jumped out of my chair.
It had come from the other side of the room – the closet door. It was the closet that shared a wall with room 733.
"Lydia, you're not fucking funny."