by Mark Lukens
We also talked about the big theft at work. It was kind of a big deal because the only other time I’d heard of anyone stealing anything in the six years I had worked there was when a new salesman tried to lift a couple of spray cans of insecticide worth about twenty dollars. Steve told him he would have given the cans of insecticide to him if he really needed them, but he couldn’t tolerate someone stealing from him. He fired him on the spot.
After Stan downloaded the software and got the cameras online, we went into the kitchen. Stan sat down and cracked a bottle of beer open while I heated up some plates of pizza in the microwave oven.
“I gotta ask,” Stan said. “What do you need the cameras for?”
I knew it was bugging him. Stan was a conspiracy nut, and I’m sure he had installed similar cameras in his mom’s house. He probably didn’t even find what I was doing that strange, but definitely intriguing. He wanted in on the loop.
“Here’s your pizza,” I told him, setting the plate down in front of him.
I sat down opposite him, wondering how much I should tell him.
He ate half the slice of pizza in a few bites, watching me as he chewed like a horse. He swallowed and then drank down half his beer. He was waiting for me to divulge my reasons.
“I think someone’s been in my house,” I told him.
His eyes widened. “You mean like someone broke in?”
I shrugged. “That’s the weird part. I haven’t seen any signs of a break-in. No busted locks or windows. But . . . I don’t know; you’re going to think this is kind of weird.”
No he wasn’t. He hunched forward, suddenly intrigued, like a kid listening to a bedtime story just when it was getting good.
“It’s just a feeling I get. It’s like I can tell things have been moved around a little. Disturbed. I’m not sure if someone has come in when I’ve been out, or when I’m sleeping.”
“You think someone’s been coming into your house while you’re sleeping?”
I shrugged again. “That’s the thing—I don’t know. I woke up a few times and heard some noises. I went through the house with a baseball bat. But I didn’t find anyone in the house.”
“But you found something,” Stan said. He got up and got another beer out of the refrigerator. He didn’t offer me one because he knew I didn’t drink anymore. He sat back down at the table. He looked like he was already catching a buzz. “Something bad enough to make you want to install cameras.”
I nodded. “A few times there were lights left on in the kitchen. And the front door was unlocked.”
Stan thought it over for a moment, draining down half of his beer. “You think it’s Michelle?”
The thought had crossed my mind, but I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“But why would Michelle come back if she left you?”
“I don’t know. None of her stuff was taken. Not even her phone. And if it’s Michelle, then you would think she would wait until she thought I was at work.”
“But I thought you said Michelle was taken.”
“I don’t know if she was. All I know is that she left with some man and she never took any of her stuff with her. Not even her purse.”
“Maybe whoever took her is looking for something of hers.”
I thought of the money in the bank account, but I had left those bank statements in the desk drawer in the office. And if whoever had her just wanted the money, which wasn’t a terribly large amount of money, they could just make her go to the bank and withdraw it or move the funds into another account on a computer.
“Why don’t you go to the cops?” Stan asked. “Tell them you think someone’s been in your house.”
“Because I don’t think they’d be too worried about it. They think I’m the prime suspect in my wife’s disappearance right now.”
Stan nodded like he understood that.
“I figured I would get something on film first. Then maybe go to them.” I wasn’t so sure all of that was the truth.
Stan stared at me, shaking his head a little. “I can’t help thinking there’s more to this. Something you’re not telling me.”
I sat there for a moment, wondering if I should tell Stan more. I really wanted to unload some of this onto someone else, take some pressure off of myself. Of course Stan might think I was a little nuts, but why the hell not?
“I’ve been sleepwalking,” I said.
Stan’s eyes widened. I’m sure he had been thinking of scenarios, trying to guess what else could be going on, but he hadn’t thought about that. “Sleepwalking?”
“I’ve been waking up the last few nights with my pants and shoes on, even though I went to bed in only my underwear and a T-shirt.”
“So, you got up, got dressed, and don’t remember it?”
“Not just that, I think I might have been going somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Other places in the house. Leaving lights on. My computer on. My front door unlocked.”
“So these cameras aren’t about someone breaking in, they’re about you sleepwalking.”
“Well, yes and no. Definitely for the sleepwalking, but I still think someone might have been inside my house. At least outside my windows.”
He just stared at me.
“I bought a camera and filmed myself last night.”
“You filmed yourself?”
“Yeah. While I was sleeping. Maybe it would be easier if I showed you the film.”
*
Twenty minutes later Stan sat in my office chair staring at the computer screen. It was at the point right before I woke up in the middle of the night, right when the flash of light shined for just a second between the closed curtains of the bedroom windows. He rewound the footage again and again, pausing it, studying it.
I paced, then stopped, watching him. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Could be someone out there with a flashlight. Or maybe lightning?”
“I guess. I mean there weren’t any thunderstorms last night, but maybe it was heat lightning.”
He turned and looked at me. “You really don’t remember sitting up in bed, getting up and getting your shoes on?”
I shook my head no.
“You’ve never walked in your sleep before?”
“Not that I know of. If I have, no one’s ever told me before. Not my parents. Not Michelle. I don’t know why I would be starting now.”
“Maybe it’s the stress of . . . you know, what happened to Michelle.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. I was sure that was part of it, but it felt like something more. “I’ve been seeing a doctor.” I didn’t want to say the word psychiatrist. “She gave me something to help me sleep.”
Stan didn’t say anything; he just waited for me to continue.
“I thought maybe I was having a bad reaction to them. Like a side effect.”
“Yeah, that could be it.”
“But I’ve been taking those for a few years now and I’ve never had these problems before.”
“Maybe it’s a combination of the sleeping pills and the stress.”
That could be possible. “I stopped taking the sleep aids a few nights ago and I’m not taking any of the other medication until this sleepwalking stops. I’ve got an appointment with my doctor, but it isn’t until next Tuesday.”
“Yeah, maybe it’s a good idea to stop all the meds.”
“It’s driving me crazy. I don’t know how to explain it, but it doesn’t feel like I was getting up and wandering around, but like I was getting up and going somewhere specific. Doing something specific. That’s why I wanted to get these cameras in here, to see what I’m doing in the middle of the night.” I paused for just a second. “And to make sure no one else is coming into my home.”
“Well, these cameras will do it. I’ve sent the footage to a remote access point in the cloud so you can download from there to your phone, just in case someone were to tamper with your computer, or take it, or try to destroy it or
the cameras. At least you would still have access to the footage.”
“I don’t know how to thank you, Stan. I know you must think I’m crazy.”
“No, not at all.” He stood up, obviously ready to leave, getting his cigarettes out so he could light one on the way to his truck. “Let me know what happens. Will you?”
I promised him that I would.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I made Stan take the rest of the beer with him when he left—I didn’t want to be tempted. I cleaned up a little, putting the leftover pizza in the fridge, wiping down the table. I was trying to stay busy as I thought about tonight. I knew it was going to be hard to get to sleep knowing cameras were going to be running the whole time.
After a long shower and some TV, I lay down in my bed. I kept the video camera on that I had bought the day before, still in the same spot on top of the dresser so it was trained right on the bed. I lay there on my back, dressed only in my underwear and a T-shirt, staring up at the ceiling fan, which was spinning on its lowest setting. I had the A/C turned down to seventy-five degrees, comfortable enough for me to sleep.
And then soon I drifted off, and soon I was dreaming.
*
The dream started off just like the others had. I followed Michelle through the darkness, which I now knew was the street in front of our home. She turned to look back at me, smiling at me, gesturing for me to catch up with her, to follow her.
I called out for her to wait, but she didn’t. She was across the street and beyond the carport, at the wooden gate that opened up to the large back yard.
The gate was shutting, just about to latch, but I caught it before it closed all the way. I pushed the gate open and entered the back yard, standing in the weeds and sand. There was a golden light shining through the fog to my right. I turned and saw an eagle perched on top of the fence about ten feet away. The bird barely moved, but I could tell it was looking right at me. I looked to my left and saw that the back door to the storage area was open, a splash of light shining out from the doorway, washing the weedy lawn in a dim yellow light in the mist. I felt the presence of something else in the fog, something large and dangerous, but even though the thing in the fog frightened me, I needed to find Michelle. I hurried to the back door of the house.
A moment later I was at the doorway, then I was entering the storage unit, staring at the walls; the graffiti was there and the strings of seemingly random numbers. The door to the interior of the house was open.
Time shifted in the dream, and the shadows had thickened now that I was somewhere inside the house. I had something in my hands, my fingers wrapped around something. I looked down and saw Michelle’s terrified face staring up at me, her mouth frozen in a scream, her tongue protruding, her eyes bulging. I had my hands around her neck, my thumbs pressing down against her windpipe as hard as I could. She had been struggling, beating at my arms and face with her hands, trying to pry my fingers away from her flesh. But I held fast, I kept on choking, squeezing.
I jerked awake, sitting up in bed, unable to catch my breath for a moment. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest, squeezing my lungs shut as firmly as I had squeezed Michelle’s windpipe shut in the dream.
“Oh God,” I whispered as I looked around.
I looked at the alarm clock beside the bed with my two bottles of prescription pills and the bottle of water next to it. It was a little after three a.m.
I looked down at my body, not surprised to see that I was fully dressed in pants and sneakers. My breaths were still rapid, my heart still thundering. I could feel a sheen of sweat on my tingly skin.
Something felt wrong, like something bad had just happened.
“I didn’t do that,” I whispered to myself. “That was just a nightmare.”
But it hadn’t felt like a nightmare—it felt like a memory.
A sudden burst of energy surged through me. I got up and rushed across the room to the dresser, yanking the video camera free from the wall charger. I took it with me into the hall and then to the office. My computer was on and the desk lamp on the shelf right above the monitor was turned on.
I sat down and moved the mouse so the screen lit up. There were no windows open, just the home screen. With trembling hands I hooked up the video camera to the computer, downloading the footage. I wanted to check the cameras that Stan had hooked up, but I made myself wait. I told myself that I wanted to watch everything in order from when I first got up and walked in my sleep. But maybe the truth was that I didn’t want to see just yet.
While the footage from the digital camcorder downloaded onto my computer, I got up and went out to the living room. The light was on over the stove and the light was on in the foyer. I did a quick search of the house, but everything seemed to be undisturbed. I checked the front door. It was unlocked. I locked it, not bothering to open the door and look outside. I had some leftover sweet tea in a pitcher on the counter from when Stan was over earlier. I poured myself a plastic cupful and heated it up in the microwave.
A few minutes later I was back in front of my computer screen with the cup of hot tea. The video was done downloading, so I watched it.
I fast-forwarded for a little until I saw myself sit up on the bed, then I stopped and rewound it. I watched myself sit up in bed just like I’d done last night. Only this time I didn’t see any flash of light through the crack in the curtains. I would watch the whole video later to see if there were any lights, but right now I was impatient to see where I had gone after I got out of bed.
Before checking the feed on the other cameras, I fast-forwarded again until I came back onto the screen, then slowed it down, noting the time. Two thirty-three a.m. Not even an hour ago. I came into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed, then laid down and rolled over, falling back asleep.
I checked the feed on the other cameras. It took a little while to synchronize everything, but I realized where I had gone when I had left the bedroom. I had gone into the hallway, then the kitchen, flipping on a few lights along the way. I went right to the front door, unlocked it, opened it, and went out onto the front porch. I shut the door and left the front porch. I watched from the front porch camera as I walked right across my front yard, crossing the street, then disappearing into the darkness as I walked toward the empty house.
I was over there for almost forty-five minutes. Then I came back across the street, climbed the steps of the front porch, entered the house and went down the hall to the office. I turned on the computer and waited in front of it as it booted up. Moments later I moved the mouse around, clicking it a few times. From the vantage point of the camera I couldn’t see the computer screen. I would have to either try to move the camera or move the monitor so I could see the screen the next time I walked in my sleep—see what I was typing. On the footage, I typed on the keyboard for a minute and a half, then clicked the button on the mouse a few times. I got up and went back to bed.
God, it was so strange to watch myself doing this. I couldn’t remember any of it, yet I looked like I was fully awake while doing all of those things.
I got up and paced around the small office, then out to the hallway.
I’d gone across the street to that house for almost forty-five minutes. Why? What was I doing over there?
The nightmare I’d had flashed through my mind. I saw myself choking Michelle.
That had nothing to do with it, I told myself. It was just a nightmare.
Was it?
But I knew what I had to do now. I needed to go across the street to that house. I knew I should wait until morning to do it, but I couldn’t wait any longer—I had to see.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I went to the kitchen and grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen drawer, turning it on to make sure it worked. I paused for a moment. I hadn’t taken a flashlight with me while sleepwalking. Did that mean there was some kind of light over there? I’d seen a line of light in the front windows in my dream, but I really didn’t think the electricit
y would be on in that house with no one living there for the last four years.
Should I take a knife or my baseball bat with me? But I’d just been over there an hour ago. If there was something over there that could hurt me, it hadn’t done so before. I decided to leave the bat. It was bad enough I was going across the street to an abandoned house with a flashlight in the middle of the night—I’m sure that was some kind of crime. Taking a weapon with me seemed to make it worse.
Then I froze. I knew the detectives suspected me of doing something to Michelle, or at least bothering them with filing a false police report because my wife had left me. Could they be staked out down the street and watching my home?
But I dismissed that idea right away. If they were watching me, they would have been at the house in seconds, arresting me, using any excuse to bring me in. No, they probably had more important things to do than staking out my home; they were waiting patiently until something else turned up before they wasted their time on me.
I inhaled a deep breath and let it back out. I was ready to go.
Making sure I had my car keys with me (with a house key on it), I opened the front door and stepped outside. I thought about locking the door, but why bother? Apparently I had been leaving the house at least the last three nights that I’d been waking up fully dressed with my shoes on. That’s why I had gotten dressed, so I could go across the street to that house.
I stood there on the front porch for just a moment, looking at the street. I could see a little better in person than I could from the front porch camera earlier; the streetlight a few feet beyond the corner of my driveway nestled next to a scrub of palm bushes helped quite a bit. Insects buzzed in the brush all around the house and the fields across the street. Moths fluttered around the porch light, bumping against the glass gently.
The grass was dry, crunching under my footsteps as I walked to the end of the lawn. I hadn’t been watering the lawn lately, not really caring anymore, and the afternoon thunderstorms hadn’t started just yet. Another few months and those storms would come as reliably as an alarm clock.