by Mark Lukens
I wondered if there was a way I could find out how the money was being deposited. But I wasn’t quite courageous enough to ask the teller just yet. I was sure that would raise some suspicions.
For the rest of the evening I checked emails and phones, rechecking them again and again for a message from Michelle. I called some people on Michelle’s contact list again, but all I got were voicemails. I didn’t leave any messages this time. Her sister’s number was still disconnected. I tried looking Brenda up online, but I didn’t have any luck. I wondered if Michelle had gone to her sister’s house, but I barely remember Michelle speaking to her, or even much about her. They’d had a huge falling out after their mother’s funeral.
I got the video camera set up and charged up, reading the instructions. I wasn’t the greatest at tech, but it seemed fairly simple to operate.
As I got ready for bed, I set the camera up on the dresser and recorded the bed for a few minutes. Then I watched the footage, making sure I could clearly see the bed with the bathroom light on. I realized that maybe I should have bought a camera that had night vision or something. But I would just sleep with the bathroom and hall lights on—that seemed to be enough light for me to see the bed well enough.
“Testing,” I said into the camera, holding it in front of my face. “My name is Zach Hughes and I’m going to film myself tonight. See what happens.”
I got the camera set again on top of the dresser; I angled it so that it was filming the bed. I felt self-conscious as I lay down in bed with only my underwear and T-shirt on, but I needed to see what I was doing at night, when I was getting up and getting dressed, when I was putting my shoes on.
It took a while to fall asleep. I wasn’t sure how long the battery on the video camera would last. I had asked the guy at the store to find me a camera that had the longest battery life, and this was the one he had shown me. But he said I could keep the charger hooked up to the camera so that the battery wouldn’t wear down.
I had taken my anxiety meds, as I usually did, but I had been skipping the sleep-aids for the last few nights, worried that I was getting some kind of side effects from them, like sleepwalking, or maybe more accurately, sleep dressing.
But, little by little, my eyes closed, and I drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I jumped awake at seven o’clock. I sat up in bed and looked down at my legs. I had my jeans on, the same ones I’d worn the day before. I had my sneakers on and the same T-shirt I’d gone to bed in.
Remnants of the dreams were coming back to me as I sat there. It was the same dream I’d been having, chasing Michelle across the street to the empty house, that strange fog everywhere in the back yard, something hidden in that fog. Only this time I was in the house again, inside the storage area. I’d seen the series of numbers scrawled on the walls in different colored markers, and there were other things on the walls: words, sentences, drawings, some kind of graffiti.
I saw the video camera on the dresser. I jumped out of bed and grabbed the camera. The charger was still connected to the camera so the battery wouldn’t wear down. I unhooked everything and brought it with me into the office.
My computer was already on, which had been happening every night for the last few nights, and I was sure some lights in the kitchen and living room were on and that the front door was unlocked.
I was shaking as I plugged in the adapter from the camera to the computer. I had already installed the software last night, so my computer already recognized the camera. I downloaded the video. It took much longer to download than I thought it would, so I went to the kitchen. I needed some coffee.
The house looked normal, but it didn’t feel normal. It seemed like things were just slightly out of place, like things had been moved just a little. I turned off the front porch light and opened the front door. I stepped outside into the thick, humid air. The sun was bright, almost a golden color at this time of the morning. The house across the street stood under that golden light, neglected and abandoned, the windows dark with blinds drawn.
I knew I still had some time before the video was completely downloaded, so I made a quick breakfast, some scrambled eggs and frozen sausages that I microwaved and then fried in a pan. I ate quickly, checking my phone for emails. I’d gotten several emails already this morning from Steve and from Stan. Steve wanted to know what Ms. Bergman’s deal was with her lawn. Of course he was sending Stan back out there to do a completely free lawn service and Stan was complaining about it. The lawn techs worked off of commissions, so any free work they did they didn’t get paid for. But anything to keep a customer happy, even if they refused to water their lawn.
Finally, it was time to sit in front of the computer and watch the video. Finally, I was going to see what I was doing in the middle of the night.
*
Five hours later I sat motionless in my office chair. I had watched the video for four hours, then I rewound it and watched a few parts over and over again. I watched myself on the video after I had finally fallen asleep. I was on my back for twenty minutes, and then I rolled over onto my side. I lay like that for almost an hour, breathing heavily.
There was a quick splash of a light from outside the windows behind the bed, just visible through the crack in the curtains, like someone out there had shined a flashlight around. Then the light was gone. I rewound that moment at least six times, making sure that a light had really been there. Had someone been outside my windows last night, maybe the same someone who had entered my house before?
After the light was gone, I sat up in bed on the video; it wasn’t a sudden, bolt-upright movement, but more like I’d just been gently roused from sleep. My eyes were open, and I looked around for just a moment, maybe it was like I’d heard something, perhaps the noise made by whoever was outside my windows. I got out of bed and walked around the foot of it, walking right past the camera, on my way to the closets and the bathroom. I wasn’t walking like a zombie or someone in a trance, the cartoon caricature of someone sleepwalking with their arms straight out. I looked like I was awake and alert, and it was giving me chills watching myself.
Two minutes later I came back into the view of the camera with my jeans on and my sneakers in my hand. I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my sneakers on, tying up the laces. I never looked at the camera, but my eyes were open the whole time. I sat there on the edge of the bed for a few more seconds, then I got up and walked toward the bedroom door and out of the frame.
I was gone from the bedroom for almost an hour and a half. There was a time code down at the bottom of the footage in a corner. I watched the time tick by. I got a spiral notebook out, opened it up. I wrote down the date, the time I woke up, the time I left the bedroom, and then the time I came back.
When I came back I climbed into bed still fully clothed and with my shoes on. I lay on my back for a few minutes, my eyes closed, breathing deeply. Then I rolled over and went back to sleep. I slept, tossing and turning just a little, until almost seven o’clock this morning when I jumped awake.
I sat back in my office chair, staring at the screen as I watched myself again and again, watching myself get up and get my shoes on, then fast-forwarding to myself coming back into the bedroom and lying down in the bed with my sneakers still on. I rewound the footage again, going back to the beginning, to my stupid face filling up the screen, smiling. “Testing,” I said into the screen. “My name is Zach Hughes, and I’m going to film myself tonight. See what happens.”
Yeah, I’d seen what happens alright.
Where had I gone to for almost an hour and a half? Was I somewhere else inside the house? Obviously I had gone to my office and turned my computer on because it was on again this morning like it had been the last few mornings since Michelle had disappeared. And I had turned some lights on in the kitchen and unlocked the front door. Had I gone outside? Had I gone across the street to the empty house? Had I met with whoever was outside my bedroom windows?
It frightened me
to think that I was sleepwalking. This was dangerous. What if I cooked something at night and left something on the burner, started a fire? What if I walked in front of a car? What if I drove somewhere? I decided right then and there that I needed to start keeping track of the mileage on all three of the vehicles.
I’d never walked in my sleep before. Or if I had, I’d never known about it. I wondered for a moment if Michelle had caught me sleepwalking. Had I done something in my sleep that had scared her? Would that be reason enough for her to leave me? It seemed hard for me to imagine that. It seemed like she would want to help me instead of running away.
I had to get up and move around. I usually got up and paced when I felt a panic attack coming on. But this wasn’t a panic attack; this was more like an invisible weight crushing down onto me. It felt like I’d gotten some kind of terrible diagnosis, not something life-threatening, but something life-altering that I would have to learn to cope with. It felt like I had changed and I would never be the same again.
I went outside onto the front porch. I stared at the house across the street for a moment, contemplating walking over there and inspecting it. Instead, I walked over to my vehicles and peeked inside. The doors were all locked and everything looked normal to me. I went around to the side yard where our bedroom windows faced. I looked down at the ground outside the windows, studying it.
What was I looking for? Footprints? Like I would be able to tell tracks in the grass. But I looked anyway, searching for any kind of sign: maybe a cigarette butt, a piece of trash, a slight impression left in the dirt.
But I couldn’t find anything.
I went back inside the house, pacing again, thinking about walking in my sleep.
Dr. Valentine. She could help.
A moment later I was on the phone with Dr. Valentine’s receptionist again.
“I called you yesterday about setting up an appointment for next Tuesday,” I reminded the receptionist after I gave her my name.
“Yes,” she answered. “I haven’t gotten a confirmation from Dr. Valentine yet, but I will call you back as soon as I hear from her.”
“Yeah, but here’s the thing. I might need to see her sooner than that. Remember when you asked me yesterday if this was an emergency?” I didn’t wait for her answer. “Well, I think it might be.”
“If you think you’re having an emergency, then you should call 911, or if you’re able to drive yourself to the hospital, you should check yourself in.”
It sounded like she was reading from some kind of card.
I didn’t want to go to a hospital. I could imagine being admitted to a psychiatric ward against my will for the next seventy-two hours. And wouldn’t that just give the detectives a little more fuel for their fire, another log to throw on the case they were building?
“Okay,” I said, sighing, trying to use the breathing exercises that Dr. Valentine (I mean the pamphlets) had taught me. “Okay. I just really need to see her this coming Tuesday.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
“Is there any way she could call me? Talk to me on the phone? Just for a few minutes?”
“I’m not sure. I will have to check with her. Are you having some kind of issues with your medications? Side effects of some sort?”
I wasn’t sure. “I don’t think so.” I didn’t know if I should tell her that I’d begun sleepwalking. I wasn’t sure if what I said to a receptionist was covered by doctor-patient confidentiality. And was the sleepwalking a side effect of the meds? I wasn’t sure. I needed to talk to Dr. Valentine to find out. I had stopped taking the sleep-aids, but not the anxiety meds. Maybe I should stop those for a few days, too.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” the receptionist asked. She sounded like the teller at the bank.
“No, thanks. If you could just get with Dr. Valentine. I really need to see her on Tuesday.”
“Of course.”
I hung up the phone. I wondered if I should just go down to the medical center, to Dr. Valentine’s office. Maybe if I showed up, she would find a few minutes to see me. But then I imagined the police being called, the detectives showing up with smirks on their faces, a gleam in their eyes as they hoped I would screw up like that.
No, I just needed to calm down and think for a bit.
I had been sleepwalking for the last few nights, getting up out of bed in the middle of the night and getting dressed, putting my shoes on. I had definitely turned on some lights and my computer, unlocked my front door. But why had I put my shoes on? Had I gone outside? Had I gone to the house across the street? Had I broken in there? Was that why I was dreaming about the house so much?
Okay, I had questions, but now I needed answers.
What could stop me from sleepwalking?
Maybe the sleepwalking was a side effect from the pills. I had stopped taking the sleep-aids, and I would stop taking the anxiety meds. I thought that I wasn’t supposed to stop taking the meds without Dr. Valentine’s approval, but maybe when she called—if she would ever call—I would talk to her about it. But for now, I had decided to stop taking them.
Maybe I should tie myself down to the bed so I wouldn’t go anywhere. Tie a rope from my ankle or wrist to the bed, nothing too restraining, just something to keep me from walking away from the bed.
But then I imagined myself getting up and falling, hurting myself. Or simply untying what I had tied. If I could get my shoes from the closet and tie up the laces, surely I could untie a rope from around my wrist or ankle.
I knew what I had to do—I needed to see where I was going at nights. And for that I needed more cameras.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was early afternoon when I called Stan. He’d said if there was anything he could do to help, just ask. Stan was good with tech stuff and computers. If anyone knew how to hook some cameras up, it would be him.
I felt funny calling him, but I had nowhere else to turn. Maybe he could point me in the right direction, recommend a company that would install cameras for me. But would a company install the cameras the way I wanted them installed? Better to call Stan first.
Stan didn’t pick up, so I left a message, urging him to call me back as soon as possible.
I cleaned up a little and turned on the TV. What I didn’t do was watch the video again. I didn’t want to watch myself getting up and walking out of the bedroom. I wanted something to distract me from it for a little while, but no matter what I did, my thoughts kept returning to it.
Thirty minutes later Stan called.
“What’s up, man?”
“Stan, hey.”
Stan could tell by the tone of my voice that something was wrong. “Hey, you okay?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess. Remember when you asked if there was anything you could do?”
“Yeah.”
“I need a favor.”
“Shoot.”
I told him what I wanted and thank God he didn’t seem to think the request was too bizarre. I asked if there was any way he could help me hook them up tonight, and of course it was no problem. I just needed to go get the cameras I needed, but he warned me that it might be a bit pricey. I didn’t care. I asked him to send me a text of exactly what I needed so I could ask the people at the electronics store. He told me there was something called a spy store in Port Orange (something I never even knew existed). He said he would send me the address along with the list.
“I know those guys there,” he told me. “So mention my name. You might even get a discount.”
“I will. Thanks, Stan. I’ll pay you for this. Whatever you want.”
“Naw, man. Just some pizza and beer.”
I asked what he wanted on his pizza and I hung up the phone, ready to go get the cameras I needed.
*
Three hours later I was on my way home with the camera equipment, wiring, and some router-type device that hooked up to my computer that Stan told me to get. I stopped at a corner store and got a twelve-pack of Bud Light, then I go
t two large pizzas—one pepperoni and the other some kind of ultimate supreme—from the pizza shop around the corner from the gas station.
Stan got there half an hour later. After he smoked a cigarette outside, he went right to work hooking up the cameras exactly where I wanted them. He had two tool boxes with him and seemed to be somewhat familiar with what he was doing. He explained that the cameras were remote and would beam to the computer via the router he asked me to buy. He hooked a camera up in the office, one in the living room, one in the kitchen, and one outside on the front porch, but aimed away from the front door and pointing across the street at the vacant house. To his credit, he didn’t question me, but I knew he was curious and eventually he would ask me about it.
While Stan worked, we talked about Jay suing the company for his cancer, discussing his chances of winning. Jay had reached out to each one of us to be a witness for him, but of course none of us could help if we planned on keeping our jobs. Jay had also reached out to people who used to work there.