“Now, I know being a gossip is a terrible thing,” Laura said, “but I can’t help my curiosity.” She leaned forward and grinned a little. “So you must tell me. What has my little daughter been saying about me?”
The anxiety that had been tugging at the edge of Sandra’s belly burst forth and flooded her entire body with a raw, full-fledged fear. She forgot the rear-view mirror altogether this time, and turned in her seat, craning her neck to look back at Laura—or whoever she now thought she was—hoping to see some sign of a joke or a put-on. There was none. Laura stared back at Sandra with her strange posture, and the hint of a mischievous grin pulling at the edges of her mouth.
Sandra began to panic. When she turned to face the road again she nearly lost control of the car. Her mind raced, looking for some excuse to get rid of the madwoman. “Listen, I think I forgot something important back at the hotel. Maybe I should drop you off here and you can find another ride north. I don’t know how long it will take for me to double back and find it.”
“Nonsense,” Laura, or whoever, said. “We aren’t so far out of town yet, and this weather is awful. I’ll come with you, I’m in no rush anyhow.”
Sandra’s spirits fell. She’d thought it a good excuse, especially on the fly. She added nervously, “You know what, it’s just paperwork, and I have another copy at the office now that I think about it. It’d be a waste of time, really.”
“Suit yourself.”
After a bend in the highway, Sandra noticed they were approaching another tunnel. Every part of her being was screaming to just pull over and demand the girl get out, but fear kept her driving on. What if Laura attacked her? What would she do? But the idea of being again in the dark with this lunatic was unbearable. She leaned forward again, and gritted her teeth. They were soon inside the tunnel and washed in darkness. Sandra flipped on her headlights and glanced at the rearview mirror every few seconds. It was pointless. In the dark, the mirror was like looking at the surface of a lake in the middle of the night. A slight flicker of white light reflected here and there, but nothing more. She’d get no warning there if things went bad.
She heard the hitchhiker shuffling a little behind her. A scream skirted the edge of her throat, at the very cusp of coming free. And then she could see light ahead. This tunnel wasn’t as long as the last one, thank God. The tunnel’s end calmed her nerves just enough to keep her from crying out.
Soon they were back in the open air. Sandra glanced in the rear-view, and saw that the noise she’d heard had apparently been Laura taking her original seat on the passenger side.
“I’m actually glad you moved back to that side, it’s easier to talk to you when you’re there,” Sandra said with a nervous chuckle.
Laura, who’d been vacantly staring out her window, looked toward Sandra and tilted her head slightly to the side. “What do you mean?”
Nothing,” Sandra said. “Never mind.” She had to think of something. This had to end.
“I hated my mother,” Laura said. “She was so awful. She really did deserve for someone to kill her. I truly believe that.”
Sandra noticed Laura was now speaking about her mother in the past tense. The girl wiped at her cheek again. Sandra’s own eyes were beginning to moisten, the terror inside setting her on the verge of tears.
“I think she wanted my brother to die,” Laura continued. “Wanted us all to die, really. And she almost got her wish, too, now that there’s only me left. Stupid fucking bitch.”
As Laura continued to speak, her voice, which had begun as dull and impassive, began to flare with anger, each word ending with a terse, clipped edge. Sandra was afraid to let the girl go on, lest her temper continue to rise.
“I’m sorry, Laura, but this highway is getting pretty bad,” Sandra said, with the hopes of shutting the girl up. “It’s taking all my attention just to keep us from sliding off the road.”
“He was dead when I woke up, you know,” Laura said. “He’d shivered all night. It was below zero outside. Mother slept in her room with the heater, while we kids huddled together in our room, and Alex, that was my brother’s name, he shivered all night long even though I held him close and squeezed him and tried to keep him warm. When I woke up the next morning he was cold as ice and wasn’t breathing, and when I screamed and mother came into the room she had sweat in her hair… Can you believe that? Alex froze to death and she was in there sweating by her heater.”
Laura wiped at her cheek again.
“Laura, I’m sorry… but,” Sandra’s voice broke. “But these roads…”
“I was still holding on to him. He was dead, and I was holding on to him, and mother came in sweating. You know she didn’t even cry? She didn’t even look sad. That’s why I think she secretly wanted us dead. She was tired of having to look after us.” Without warning, Laura’s voice rose into a terrifying scream. “I hated her!”
Sandra jumped, cried out herself, and lost control of the car for a moment. The back tires fishtailed through the slush and snow, and Sandra whimpered as she struggled to bring it back under control. Ahead, another tunnel appeared. Sandra whispered a desperate, “no…”
The tunnel approached, the black semi-circle of its mouth growing ominously in size as Sandra drove toward it, and then it swallowed her car and she was again left in darkness with her disturbed passenger. Sandra leaned forward again, and nearly forgot to switch on her headlights. She sniffled, tears fell, and when she flicked on the lights she discovered she was too close to the tunnel wall and swerved away from it. She heard the soft whisper of Laura shuffling behind her.
“Please stay on that side, Laura,” Sandra pleaded. “I don’t like you to be behind me.”
No response came. Only the hushed sound of Laura’s movement across the seat. This particular tunnel was the longest of the lot, if Sandra remembered correctly. The overhead light in her car was broken, and she silently cursed herself for not getting it fixed. There just never seemed to be enough time for such a trivial thing. But what she wouldn’t give to have the light working at this very moment…
Sandra suddenly gasped as an image flashed to life in her mind’s eye, like a bright beacon of hope in this here-to-fore bleak situation. The police station! On her way in, on this very highway, she had seen a police station just before the series of tunnels had begun to break the road into light and dark stretches. Sandra didn’t know if it was a sheriff station, state police, or highway patrol, but who cared? If she could make it to the police station, she could pull in and run inside, leaving Laura in the backseat while she sought safety among the officers. It was even on the same turn off as a small rest area, if memory served, so she could tell Laura she needed to use the restroom to not raise any suspicion until the last moment.
The tunnel ended and the inside of the car lit up. Sandra glanced in the mirror. Sure enough, she found Laura in the seat directly behind her. The girl’s posture had once again changed to the lazy slouch Sandra had witnessed when Laura was apparently speaking as her own mother. Sandra stayed forward in her seat, hugging the wheel, and spent equal amounts of time with her eyes on the road in front of her and on the mirror, watching Laura behind.
“Well,” Laura said in her mother’s voice, “let’s have it. What’s little Laura been saying. I’m sure it’s awful, and without much truth. That girl always was a liar, just like her no-good father.”
“I don’t want to get involved,” Sandra said, not failing to recognize the absurdity of the statement.
“Honey, you got involved when you let us into your car.”
“Us?” It came out as a squeak. Tears were falling freely from Sandra’s eyes now.
“C’mon, let’s hear it. What’d she say? Did she whine about my mothering abilities?”
“I don’t—“
“Did she tell you I neglected her and her siblings?”
“She didn’t—“
“Or was it about our ‘so very cold’ apartment?”
Sandra didn’t reply.
“Aaaah…” Laura cooed in her mother’s voice. “The cold, was it? Then she must’ve told you about Alex. Poor, sweet Alex. So unfortunate.”
“She said you let him freeze to death.” Sandra snapped.
“Of course she did. You don’t believe that, though, do you? Would they really have let Laura and her sister, Claire, stay with me had that been the case?”
“She said the state took them away.” Sandra didn’t want to engage the woman, but couldn’t help it. A little boy had apparently died, after all, and her emotions were high.
“Oh, they did, of course. While they investigated Alex’s death. But it was ruled an accident, and it wasn’t due to the temperature of the apartment.”
“How did he die, then?”
“Asphyxiation. Yes, it seems our Laura, in her attempt to keep him warm, squeezed Alex too tightly. She always was the dramatic sort.”
“What about her sister, Claire, you said? How did she die?”
“No one knows that she even is dead. She disappeared, that’s all, but that was a few years after she was out of my care. Claire was my oldest, and left home when Laura was seventeen. She went missing a year or so later. Laura blamed me, of course. But I have my own suspicions.”
“Yeah?”
“Indeed. When Claire found out how Alex had died, she stopped speaking to Laura altogether. And not just for a short time, either. When Claire moved out she hadn’t said a word to Laura in years. My daughters are both stubborn women.”
“So what do you think happened to Claire?”
“I think Laura happened to her. She must’ve confronted Claire about blaming her for Alex’s death. And I know Laura looks harmless, but she has an awful temper, I’ve experienced that myself on more than one occasion. After years of being shunned, I believe she must’ve found Claire, and lost control of herself. I could be wrong, but it’s the most likely scenario in my opinion. Especially after Laura started to have all her troubles.”
“Troubles?”
“Oh, yes. They began shortly after Alex died, and grew worse over the years that followed. Violent outbursts, blackouts, night terrors… She was even committed to an institution more than once, only to have the doctors medicate her, say she was better, and send her home. Then the whole thing would start over again. When she turned eighteen I’d had quite enough, and I showed her the door and told her she was on her own.”
“You kicked out your own daughter? Even though she was sick?”
“It’s easy to judge when you’ve never been in the situation yourself. Laura was beyond help. That’s why the doctors kept sending her home to me, they knew it too.”
“It’s just a shame no one could do anything.”
“I agree with you. But that’s life, sometimes.”
They were approaching another tunnel. Were there four of them total, or five before the police station? Sandra couldn’t remember. How much longer would she have to endure this madwoman? As the tunnel darkened the inside of Sandra’s car for the third time, she hoped it would be over soon. Sandra switched on her headlights and waited for the inevitable “change” of her passenger. This particular tunnel was relatively short. Sandra could already see the light at the end, growing larger as she approached it.
When they exited the other end, a glance in the mirror told Sandra what she already suspected would be the case. Laura was sitting back on the passenger side, her posture upright, staring out the window and wiping at her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket. Sandra peered through the windshield and stayed quiet. She pushed down harder on the accelerator, increasing her speed as much as she could while still feeling safe on the slickness of the highway. Her mind was locked onto her destination, the police station, and help.
“What’s your sister’s name?” Laura asked.
“Danielle,” Sandra said. “Yours?” She worried what might happen if she told Laura she already knew her sister’s name, had been told it by Laura’s other…personality, so she’d played dumb.
“Her name was Claire. I miss her a lot.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose a sibling, much less two.”
“Try and imagine your mother being responsible for both.”
Sandra said nothing. After everything Laura’s other personality—her mother—had said about the girl, Sandra was afraid to encourage her to continue on and get her anger up. She remembered the way Laura had screamed her hatred for her mother, and it sent shivers down her back.
“I almost did kill my mother, you know,” Laura continued. “I had a knife. I was going to stab her with it. I came so close. But in the end I couldn’t do it.”
“That’s good,” Sandra said. “It proves you’re better than she is. It proves you have compassion.”
“Maybe. Sometimes I think I was just too scared. I mean, I was an adult at the time and all, but I still had it in my head that she was so much stronger than me, like when I was a kid.”
“Well, I still think it’s good you didn’t go through with it. You seem like a really great person, and it would be a shame for you to have done something like that. And you’re still rid of your mother now, right? Out on your own and away from her?”
“Yeah, I guess, but now she’s free to treat others like she did us. And she gets away with killing Alex and Claire. It’s not fair.”
“She’ll have to answer for that someday though. You did the right thing.”
“That’s easy for you to say. She used to beat us all the time. She made our lives a living hell. Our father was a nice man, but when mother decided she was done with him, she stopped letting us see him too. She also refused to work; she thought she was above such a thing, which is why we all had to sleep in the same room in that tiny, freezing apartment. She was as cold-hearted as they come.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m still glad you didn’t do anything to get yourself into trouble. And you seem like such a good person now. I’d be glad to call you my friend.”
Laura’s face suddenly twisted with rage, and she screamed, “Don’t patronize me! I know what you’re doing. Trying to keep me calm, just like the doctors. Always afraid I’m going to lose it. Well, I’m not! Fucking! Crazy!”
“I never said you were, Laura,” Sandra said, her voice trembling. “And I’m not patronizing you. I meant what I said.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Laura spat.
And ahead, another tunnel. Sandra didn’t want to drive through it. She wanted to pull over. But what then? She wasn’t a fighter, Jesus, she wrote magazine ads. What if Laura refused to get out? She certainly couldn’t drag the girl out, even if she weren’t stark raving mad. And what if Laura still had this knife she had mentioned? What if she intended on using it, like she wanted to with her mother. Sandra had never scared the girl as a child, so if Laura wanted to hurt her, she doubted she would have any reservations or fears about doing so. The original plan, then, Sandra thought. The police station. Ahead, the tunnel approached.
Laura continued to mutter to herself in the backseat, her words dripping and hateful. But as soon as the dull sunlight was blocked out by the inside of the mountain, and darkness filled the car, Laura fell silent. It was something about the dark, Sandra thought. It triggered the change in the girl somehow. The current tunnel was a long one. Things inside the car stayed quiet, the only real sound coming from the hum of the tires beneath them. They emerged from the other side, and Laura was again in her mother’s seat, wearing her mother’s posture and expression.
“She’s such a stupid girl,” Laura said, in her mother’s voice. “Always was, and always will be.”
Sandra kept her mouth shut. It was odd. When Laura was her mother, she seemed to be aware that Laura was also present somehow. She knew Sandra had been speaking with both identities. But when Laura was herself, she seemed to be completely unaware that she had anybody else inside her. Save for the mention of her “black outs”, she seemed to be unaware anything was wrong at all. Sandra had skated
through her college psychology course on her way to a degree in marketing, so she wasn’t surprised that she’d never heard of any kind of schizophrenia triggered by changes in light. Still, it was all so strange.
“You’re staying awful quiet up there,” the mother’s voice said. “Do you disagree with my opinion on our Laura?”
“I just have no opinion, that’s all,” Sandra said.
“Still want to stay out of it, huh? Don’t want to choose sides?”
“There are no sides. She’s your daughter, aren’t you on the same side?”
“That’s a dangerous point of view. You shouldn’t trust that girl.”
“I’m not saying I trust or don’t trust anyone, I just feel bad for her, whether it was your fault or not, she’s sick. She’s sick and suffering.”
“Whether it was my fault or not? So, she has gotten to you after all… I thought you were smarter than that. Can’t judge a book by its cover, I suppose.”
“I’m not saying I believe it was your fault. I’m just saying it’s sad.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure. The poor, sad, abused girl… The girl whose mother was sooo mean. How awful for her… How sad, so very sad…”
Laura’s voice, still in her mother’s tone, grew more and more irate. Sandra was beginning to see that there was at least some truth in both personalities’ versions of the events that had led Laura into becoming what she was. The back seat was soon filled with a shrill, angry beratement. Sandra leaned forward. Another tunnel—the last one, Sandra thought—came into view in the distance. Not far past the other end would be the police department. Salvation. Laura began to slap the back of Sandra’s seat as she spoke in her mother’s voice. Sandra cried out. She pushed hard on the gas pedal and sped toward the opening of the tunnel, no longer concerned with the danger in such an action given the condition of the road.
“…then tell me this about your sweet, sad Laura,” the shrill voice shouted. “If she’s such a pitiful case, if she’s such a poor, unfortunate soul, then how could she try and kill her own mother? Did she mention that in your little chats? Did she mention what she did with that knife to her own mother?”
9 Tales Told in the Dark 6 Page 4