by Riley Sager
She gives me an expectant look. Hopeful and needy all at once. And lonely. As lonely as I’ve felt the past two weeks. Other than Chloe, all my other friends seem to have vanished. I don’t know if this is my fault or theirs. Maybe I pushed them away without realizing it. Or maybe it’s just a natural by-product of my downward spiral. That loss inevitably begets loss. First Jane, then my parents, then my job and Andrew. With each loss, more and more friends drifted away. Maybe Ingrid is the person who’ll reverse that tide.
“Sure,” I say. “I’m in.”
Ingrid claps excitedly. “Then it’s settled. We’ll meet at noon in the lobby. Give me your phone.”
I pull it from my pocket and hand it to her. Ingrid enters her phone number into my list of contacts, spelling her name in all caps. I do the same with her phone, typing my name in appropriately meek lowercase letters.
“I will be texting if you try to ditch me,” she warns. “Now let’s seal the deal with a selfie.”
She holds up my phone and squeezes against me. Our faces fill the screen, Ingrid grinning madly and me looking slightly dazed by the encounter. Still, I smile, because for the first time in a long while, things don’t seem so bad. I have a temporary place to live and money on the way and a new friend.
“Perfect,” Ingrid says.
She taps the phone, and with a click, our pact is complete.
11
I spend my first night at the Bartholomew joyfully confounded over how I ended up here. The evening progresses in a sequence of impromptu steps—a happy dance being made up on the fly.
First, I climb the corkscrew steps to the bedroom, take off my shoes, and revel in the plush softness of the carpet. Walking on it feels like a foot massage.
I then fill the claw-foot tub in the master bathroom, pour in some pricey lavender-scented bubble bath I discover beneath the sink, and soak until my skin is rosy and my fingertips are pruned.
After the bath, I microwave a frozen pizza and plop it, sticky and steaming, onto a china plate so beautiful and delicate that merely touching it makes me nervous. I find a box of matches in the kitchen junk drawer and light the candles in the dining room. I eat sitting alone at one end of the absurd gangplank of a table as the flickering candlelight reflects off the windows.
When dinner is over, I open one of the bottles of wine Chloe had given me and plant myself at the sitting room window, drinking as night descends over Manhattan. In Central Park, the lamps along the paths pop into brightness, casting a ghostly halogen glow over the joggers, tourists, and couples that scurry by. I peer through the brass telescope by the window, spying on one such couple as they walk hand in hand. When they part, it’s with reluctance, their fingers extended, reaching out for final bit of contact.
I empty the glass of wine.
I refill it.
I try to pretend I’m not as lonely as I feel.
Time passes. Hours. When my third glass of wine has been emptied, I retreat to the kitchen and linger there, rinsing the wineglass and wiping down the already-clean countertops. I mull a fourth glass of wine but decide it’s not a good idea. I don’t want to get stumblingly drunk for the second time in two weeks, even though the occasions couldn’t be more different. The first time—when Chloe took me out for those ill-advised margaritas—was a sad drunk, with me weeping between sips. But now I’m oddly happy, content, and, for what feels like the first time in forever, hopeful.
Without thinking, I grab the matches off the counter, swiping one against the box until a flame flares at its tip. I then hold my left hand several inches above the flame, feeling its warmth on my open palm. Something I used to do quite often but haven’t tried in ages. There wasn’t a need.
Now that old urge has returned, and I slowly lower my hand toward the flame. As I do, I think of my parents and Jane and Andrew and fire chewing the edges of photographs before working its way to the center.
The warmth on my palm soon gives way to heat, which is quickly usurped by pain.
But I don’t remove my hand. Not yet.
I need it to hurt a little more.
I stop only when my hand twitches against the pain. Self-preservation kicking in. I blow out the match, the flame gone in an instant, a few swirling fingers of smoke the only sign it was ever lit at all.
I light another, intent on repeating the process, when a strange noise rises from the dumbwaiter shaft. Although it’s muffled slightly by the closed cupboard door, I can tell the sound isn’t the dumbwaiter itself. There’s no slow turn of the pulleys, no almost imperceptible creak.
This noise is different.
Louder. Sharper. Clearly human.
It sounds, I realize, like a scream rising up the dumbwaiter shaft from the apartment below.
Ingrid’s apartment.
I stand frozen in the kitchen, my head cocked, listening intently for a second scream as the lit match burns its way toward my pinched thumb and forefinger. When it reaches them—a hot flash of pain—I yelp, drop the match, watch the flame wink out on the kitchen floor.
The burn spurs me into action. Sucking on my fingertip to dull the pain, I go from the kitchen to the hallway to the foyer. Soon I’m out of 12A, moving down the twelfth-floor hall on my way to the stairs.
The scream—or at least what I thought was a scream—replays in my head as I descend to the eleventh floor. Hearing it again in my memory tells me checking on Ingrid is the right thing to do. She could be hurt. She could be in danger. Or she could be none of those things and I’m simply overreacting. It’s happened before. All my experiences past the age of seventeen have taught me to be a worrier.
But something about that sound tells me I’m not overreacting. Ingrid had screamed. In my mind, there’s nothing else it could have been. Especially now that I’m moving through the nocturnal silence of the Bartholomew. All is quiet. The elevator, sitting at one of the floors below, is still. In the stairwell, the only thing I hear is the whisper of my own cautious footfalls.
I check my watch when I reach the eleventh floor. One a.m. Another cause for concern. I can think of several bad reasons why a person would let out a single scream at this hour.
At the door to 11A, I pause before knocking, hoping I’ll hear another, happier sound that will ease my mind. Ingrid talking loudly on the phone. Or laughter just on the other side of the door.
Instead, I hear nothing, which prompts me to knock. Gently, so as not to disturb anyone else on the floor.
“Ingrid?” I say. “It’s Jules. Is everything okay?”
Seconds pass. Ten of them. Then twenty. I’m about to knock again when the door cracks open and Ingrid appears. She looks at me, eyes wide. I’ve surprised her.
“Jules, what are you doing here?”
“Checking on you.” I pause, uncertain. “I thought I heard a scream.”
Ingrid pauses, too. A seconds-long gap during which she forces a smile.
“It must have been your TV.”
“I wasn’t watching TV. It—”
I stop, unsure if I should be embarrassed or relieved or both. Instead, I’m even more concerned. Something about Ingrid seems off. Her voice is flat and reluctant—a far cry from the chatterbox she’d been in the park. I can see only half of her body through the gap in the door. She’s dressed in the same clothes as earlier, her right hand shoved deep into the front pocket of her jeans, as if searching for something.
“It sounded like you had screamed,” I finally say. “I heard it and got worried.”
“It wasn’t me,” Ingrid says.
“But I heard something.”
“Or you thought you did. Happens all the time. But I’m fine. Really.”
Her face says otherwise. Besides her rictus grin, there’s a dark glint in those widened eyes. They seem to burn with unspoken distress. She looks, I realize, afraid.
I move closer to the door, staring directly into her eyes. “Are you sure?” I whisper.
Ingrid blinks. “Yes. Everything’s great.”
“Then I’m sorry for bothering you,” I say, backing away from the door and forcing my own smile.
“It’s nice that you were so concerned,” Ingrid says. “You’re a sweetie.”
“Are we still on for tomorrow?”
“Noon on the dot,” Ingrid says. “Be there or be square.”
I give her a wave and take a few steps down the hall. Ingrid doesn’t wave back. Instead, she stares at me a second longer, her smile fading to a grim flat line just before she closes the door.
At this point, there’s nothing left for me to do. If Ingrid says she’s fine, then I need to believe her. If she says I didn’t hear a scream, then I have to believe that, too. But as I climb two sets of steps—one to the twelfth floor, the other to the bedroom of 12A—I can’t shake the feeling that Ingrid was lying.
NOW
Bernard leaves.
A doctor enters.
He’s older. Snowy hair and strong jaw and tiny glasses perched in front of hazel eyes.
“Hello there. I’m Dr. Wagner.” He pronounces it the German way, with a V instead of a W. All his words, in fact, are thickened by an accent that’s at once rough and charming. “How are you feeling?”
I don’t know enough about how I’m supposed to feel to give a proper answer. I vaguely remember being told I was hit by a car, which I guess should make me feel lucky I’m not dead.
“My head hurts,” I say.
“I imagine it does,” Dr. Wagner tells me. “You banged it up pretty good. But there’s no concussion, which is fortunate.”
I touch the bandage on my head again. Lightly this time. Just enough to feel the contour of my skull beneath the fabric.
“Your vitals are good, though. That’s the most important thing,” Dr. Wagner says. “You’ll see some bruising from your thigh to your rib cage. But there are no broken bones, no internal damage. All things considered, it could have been much worse.”
I try to nod, the motion stymied by the neck brace. It’s heavy and hot. Patches of sweat have formed around my collarbone. I slide a finger behind the brace, trying to wick away some of the sweat.
“You’ll be able to take that off in a little while,” Dr. Wagner says. “It’s really just a precaution. But for now, I need to ask you a few questions.”
I say nothing. I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer them. I’m not sure the doctor will believe me if I do. Still, I attempt another neck-brace shortened nod.
“How much do you remember about the accident?”
“Not much,” I say.
“But you do remember it?”
“Yes.”
At least, I think I do. I recall nothing concrete. Just snippets. I take a deep breath, trying to collect my thoughts. But they’re an unruly, unreliable bunch. My skull feels like a snow globe recently shaken, swirling with important bits of information that have yet to land. And I can’t grasp one, no matter how much I try.
I recall a screech of tires.
A blast of car horn.
A panicked yelp from somewhere behind me.
Pain. Darkness.
It’s the same with my arrival in the hospital. I remember half of it. Bernard and his bright scrubs and being told the unfortunate news about the car. But I can’t recall how I got here or what, exactly, I said when I arrived.
I chalk it up to painkillers. They’ve made me light-headed.
“Let’s try another question,” Dr. Wagner says. “A witness said he saw you burst out of the Bartholomew and run right into oncoming traffic. He said you didn’t stop. Not even for a second.”
That I remember.
Even though all I want to do is forget.
“That’s right,” I say.
The doctor casts me a curious look from behind his tiny frames. “That’s not exactly normal behavior.”
“It wasn’t exactly normal circumstances.”
“What was going on? Were you running away?”
“No,” I say. “I escaped.”
FOUR DAYS EARLIER
12
I dream of my family.
My mother. My father. Jane, looking exactly like the last time I laid eyes on her. Forever nineteen.
The three of them walk through an abandoned Central Park, the only people there. It’s night, and the park is pitch black, all its lampposts having been snuffed out. Yet my family gives off their own light, glowing a faint greenish-gray as they traverse the park.
I watch their progress from the roof of the Bartholomew, where I sit next to George, one of his stone wings folded around me in a gargoyle semi-embrace.
Out in the park, my parents see me and wave. Jane calls to me, glowing hands cupped around her mouth. “You don’t belong here!” she shouts.
As soon as the words reach me, George moves his wing.
No longer hugging.
Shoving.
The stone of his wing is cold against my back as he pushes me right off the roof. Soon I’m falling, twisting in mid-air as I plummet to the sidewalk below.
I wake with a scream in my throat, on the verge of setting it free. I gulp it back down, coughing a few times in the process. Then I sit up and eye George through the window.
“Not cool, dude,” I say.
My words have barely faded in the cavernous bedroom when I hear something else.
A noise.
Coming from downstairs.
I’m not even sure it qualifies as a noise. It’s more like a sensation. An ineffable feeling that I’m not alone. If someone asked me to describe it, I wouldn’t know how. It’s not an easily definable sound. Not footsteps. Not tapping. Not even a rustle, although that’s the nearest comparison I can think of.
Motion.
That’s what it sounds like.
Something moving through space and leaving a slight whisper in its wake.
I slip out of bed and creep to the top of the steps, leaning over them to hear more. I end up hearing nothing. But the feeling—that hair-raising sensation—persists. I am not alone in this apartment.
It occurs to me that it could be Leslie Evelyn, making an early-morning check of the apartment to see if I’m following the rules. I’m sure she has a set of keys to the place. Annoyed, I throw on my tattered terrycloth robe and whisk downstairs. She said nothing about apartment checks. I wouldn’t have agreed to that.
Who am I kidding? For twelve grand, I’d agree to almost anything.
But when I get downstairs, I find the apartment empty. The door is locked and deadbolted and the chain remains undisturbed. The noise or presence or whatever the hell you want to call it was just my imagination. The foggy remnants of my nightmare.
Exhausted but too jumpy to go back to sleep, I head to the kitchen to make coffee. Instead of a quick and easy Keurig machine, the apartment has such a high-tech, absurdly complex coffeemaker that I spend several groggy minutes just turning it on. It takes so long that my body is aching for caffeine by the time coffee starts dripping into the pot.
As it brews, I go back upstairs and shower, trying to shake off the nightmare. God, what a strange, awful dream.
There have been others, of course. Not long after my parents died. Nightmares about burning beds and thick smoke and internal organs blackened by illness. Some were so wretched that Chloe had to shake me awake because my cries threatened to wake the entire dorm. But none had ever felt so true, so real. Part of me worries that if I look out the window into Central Park, my family will still be there, glowing their way across Bow Bridge.
So I spend the morning looking at clocks.
The digital alarm clock in the bedroom as I dress for the day.
The clock in the microwave as I pour the coffee that has at long last brewed.
The grandfather clock as I drink said coffee in the sitting room, counting the pairs of eyes in the wallpaper. My tally stands at sixty-four when the clock bongs out the hour. My heart sinks. It’s only nine o’clock.
When I was laid off, I was presented with a folder of resources. Job-hun
ting tips and career counselors and information about student loans in case I wanted to go back to school. Everything I needed to face life as someone who was officially unemployed.
What wasn’t in that folder was advice on what to do with all that sudden free time. Because here’s something else no one understands unless they’ve been there: unemployment is boring. Soul-crushingly so.
People have no idea how much of their day is taken up by the act of going to work. The getting ready. The commute there. The eight hours at your desk. The commute home. So much time automatically occupied. Take them away and there’s nothing but empty hours stretching before you, waiting to be filled.
Kill time before it kills you.
My father told me that, not long after my mother got sick and he had lost his job. It was the peak of his short-lived birdhouse phase, when he spent hours in the garage building them for no discernible purpose. When I asked him why he was doing it, he looked up from the pine plank he had been painting and said, “Because I need one thing in my life I can control.”
It’s a sentiment that makes sense only in hindsight. At age nineteen, I was confused. As an unemployed adult, I get it. Although finding something to control is hard when my whole existence feels as though it’s been hit by a hurricane.
So I kill time by doing another job search, finding no openings I haven’t seen before. I do a little light cleaning, even though nothing needs it. I empty trash cans that have hardly anything in them and take the bag to the garbage chute located in a discreet alcove near the stairwell. I drop the bag inside and listen to it slide all the way down to the basement, where it lands with a soft thud.
Five more seconds wasted.
When the grandfather clock announces noon’s arrival, I leave the apartment, spotting no one new on the trip to the lobby. Just the usual suspects coming and going. Mr. Leonard and his nurse struggling up the steps and Marianne Duncan and Rufus in the lobby itself, returning from their walk. Today, Marianne wears a seafoam green cape with a matching turban. Rufus sports a red handkerchief.
“Hello, darling,” Marianne says, adjusting her sunglasses as she swans toward the elevator. “It’s chilly out there today. Isn’t it, Rufus?”