The clawed appendage reeled upwards to the ceiling and then descended down into her so fast that she could barely see it happen. She could feel its limb inside her chest. It was digging and burrowing deep into her. It moved past her skin, her ribs, and focused right onto her beating heart. Eleanor was panicked. In her mind she was screaming over and over again. Her feet were kicking. She was punching the thing in the face again and again. Unfortunately, in reality she laid absolutely still as it probed and entered her.
She could feel its claw, or whatever it was, gripping her heart. It had her in a clamp and even the slightest bit of applied pressure would end it all. She was reminded of an automotive vise that you would slowly and manually move the clamps until they held an object in place. With every second that passed the two jaws closed in closer and closer to her. Shooting pain started to emanate from her chest as the pressure increased. A sharp aching in her jaw was increasing steadily with each passing moment. Her breathing became short and erratic and with each breath she took her mind became more and more clouded. The idea of closing her eyes and just accepting it seemed inviting. The pressure continued to build up around her heart.
It knew. Somehow it knew of her intentions. It knew that she wanted to die in the middle of nowhere, to die in an empty field miles away from civilization. It had stopped her earlier that day and brought back to her apartment but now… now what was it doing?
Suddenly the pressure lessened as if it was contemplating its next move. The pain all but evaporated within her. Eleanor was filled with hope, hope that this was over. Then it happened. The pincers clamped down on her heart with such force that she could feel her heart being torn. There was no let up. The pressure continued to build and build until she felt it. It was like no other feeling she had ever experienced. Her heart’s beating had continued but something was wrong. Blood was pouring like a fountain throughout her chest cavity. Like a pair of sharp hedge clippers it had cut her heart in half.
Eleanor could feel the grayness and cloudiness of death began to wash over her. She was still frozen in place but she could feel her limbs becoming numb and she could feel her mind beginning to cloud. She felt like she could almost hear the blood pouring into her chest. Eleanor found herself thinking of Dale. How he had died in his sleep. How he had died of a heart attack alone in his bed. Is this what he felt like in his last moments? A sickening thought occurred to her. They’re going to think I died of a heart attack, just like Dale. Her eyes closed for the last time and she surrendered herself to the unconscious world.
7
Sergeant Richard Davis was not having a good year. On a cold February day he had received a call from his aunt, Eleanor Davis. His father had died in his sleep. He shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, his father was seventy-nine years old but the thought of losing him overnight like a flip of a light switch was shocking. Richard had moved out and started his life nearly thirty years ago but still him and his father talked regularly. They didn’t see each other much nowadays but they at least called each other every week to catch up. Now he was gone. There was no warning sign, no hospital bed goodbyes, nothing. He had just vanished from the world.
Richard helped organize the funeral. His father had always wanted a rather small and simple funeral and that is what he did. There were only a few guests in attendance, his sister, a few close family friends, and his Aunt Eleanor. Throughout all of Richard’s life his father had always looked out for Eleanor. Richard wasn’t entirely sure why but he learned a long time ago to stop asking questions about it. It was just the way things were. At the funeral he noticed her in the corner of the room sitting by herself. Her wrinkled face looked aged and tired, but inviting.
Richard walked over to Eleanor and they began a tepid conversation. They didn’t know each other well and the only thing they had in common was his father. There was just something about Eleanor though that Richard immediately liked. She was incredibly easy to talk to and seemed to hang on the edge of his every word. At the same time when she got going on a story of hers the old lady seemed to disappear and was replaced by the younger more youthful Eleanor. Richard felt like he could almost see her as a young woman.
When their conversation was coming to an end Dale found himself enamored with her. As they were wrapping things up he remembered something in the back of his mind. His father and Eleanor had met every Wednesday for lunch for years. The lunch tradition was dead now, but maybe he could revive it. Maybe he could start coming over on Wednesdays. Not only to carry on his father's tradition but also due to how intriguing he found Eleanor.
An expression of surprise came across Eleanor’s withered face when he asked her but it was quickly replaced with a warm smile. “You’re a kind man Richard, just like your father” She paused for a moment as if thinking about something and then continued, “I’d love to have you over. We always used to meet at eleven in the morning every Wednesday. Would that work for you?” Richard agreed with her and it was set.
--
Over the next few weeks and months they begun to get know each other on a whole new level. Eleanor would tell him stories of his father, of his late uncle, of his grandparents, or anything else that came to mind. He would vent to her when he had been having a rough week or if he had a particularly bad call. Most of the time his work was rather mundane, there was the routine traffic stop, noise complaints, and other non-issues. Carolsburg had grown quite a bit over the past ten years or so. In the previous census the population was recorded at seventy-four thousand. Now, if he was to guess he would bet the population had surpassed the one-hundred thousand marker. Even with all of that growth the crime remained low.
In all of Carolsburg’s history there had been only one homicide. Richard was just a boy when it had happened, but he remembered the frenzied newspapers and news anchors at the time. The victim wasn’t even from Carolsburg, so he didn’t know if you would even count it as a ‘Carolsburg homicide.’ A couple passing through the town stayed up at a small two story hotel that lay on the northern outskirts of the town. It wasn’t the classiest of places but it served its purpose and there were never any issues to be had. No one really knew why he did it but for some reason the husband of the couple stabbed his wife in her sleep repeatedly. The initial stab wound entered through the front of her throat followed by numerous other stabbings towards the upper torso. He fled the scene that night driving north into Iowa. The hotel maid had found her the next day at approximately ten that morning. It was one of the most open and shut cases that Richard had ever read about. Some of the older guys on the squad still joke about it today. The husband provided his driver’s license when checking in and the hotel clerk had made a copy for their records. It didn’t take long for troopers to find him. He was brought back to Carolsburg within twenty-four hours.
Up until this summer that was the worst case that Carolsburg had experienced. In July Richard had been radioed to do a wellness check on a family in a middle to upper class residential neighborhood. What he expected to be a routine check in turned into a bizarre triple murder scene. Richard was first on scene and he quickly discovered that there was a car running in the closed garage. Carbon Monoxide was being vented throughout the house. He acted fast by running into the garage and pulling the car out, but it was all in vain. They had all died hours ago.
Having still recovering from his father’s death this latest incident nearly sent Richard over the edge. There were two young children in that house. Just the thought of it made him sick. The force gave him a few days off to get his bearings straight. He needed somebody to talk to, he needed someone unaffiliated, he needed an open and unbiased ear. Luckily, the very next day after the incident was a Wednesday.
He showed up at Eleanor’s door right on time. She opened the door with a smile on her face and invited him in. The smell of freshly cooked bacon greeted him as he entered her apartment. They sat down at her small dining room table where two plates of eggs, bacon, and biscuits greeted them. A large mug of bla
ck coffee was positioned on Richard’s side of the table as well. She knew his tastes all too well. They did their usual small talk and catching up from the previous week but after a few minutes Eleanor sensed something else was bothering Richard. She could see the strain on his face. When he smiled there was a smile but there was no joy in it. He looked removed.
She pried and pried him on the issue until he finally broke. He told her about the call yesterday, about the house, the monoxide, and the two little boys asleep in their bed like nothing had happened. His voice cracked and his eyes began to water. All the while Eleanor sat in complete silence listening as intently as she could. Richard talked for ten minutes or more and as he talked the visible strain no his face and the wrinkles of stress on his forehead lessened and lessened with each passing minute. Eleanor said very little during the whole process, she just sat and listened. She felt like a priest in a confessional booth. Forgive me for I have sinned.
After he was finished there was silence between the two of them. Eleanor was looking into his eyes from across the table and after a moment asked, “How do you feel now?” Richard took in deep breath and let it out purposefully and slowly. “You know, a lot better than I thought I would,” he said with a small smile. Even though the smile was small and brief she could see the improvement in his eyes. It looked like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders. His defeated and hunched posture from when he came in the door was replaced with his usual upright and in charge look that she had associated to him over the past few months. In many ways he was just like Dale.
--
Richard now understood why his father visited with Eleanor every week. How he had only missed a few weeks here and there over a forty year span. Eleanor was an amazing person. There was just something about her. There was a light within her that seemed to alleviate all pressures and problems of the world. She had helped Richard with his father’s death, she had helped him with the murder scene, and she had helped him on numerous other problems.
It was nearing the end of September and Richard was pulling into Shaded Meadows for his Wednesday brunch meeting with Eleanor. He parked his squad car in the circle parking lot at the Shaded Meadows central office. His sister, Lori, had taken over running the complex after his father died. Before Lori his father contracted out a company to run the apartments. They did the cleaning, landscaping, maintenance, and leasing contracts. When Lori inherited the apartments she immediately fired the third party company. According to her they were eating up profits. Lori wanted to run the entire complex for herself. She didn’t need some other company doing all the work and reaping the rewards. That profit was hers and only hers.
Before Richard reached Eleanor’s apartment he popped his head into the central office to see how Lori was doing. On top of visiting his aunt every week he got the added benefit of chatting with his sister for a few minutes. He didn’t spend much time with her nowadays. It seemed that with each year his sister became less and less recognizable to him. As time went on she seemed more distant, apathetic, and even unfeeling.
When their father passed Lori inherited the Shaded Meadows apartment complex, with one catch. His father’s will strictly stated that Eleanor would have a permanent lease on her apartment and on the apartment right next door to hers. (Richard never questioned why she needed the other apartment; he just assumed it was used for storage.) The rent controlled agreement that Eleanor had of one-hundred dollars a month drove Lori crazy. She wanted, no needed, those two apartments to be charging full price. She was losing money on those two and all because her father put in some ridiculous clause in his will for an old woman who was going to die soon anyways. When Richard stuck his head in Lori’s office she barely looked up from her laptop. After receiving a variety of one word answers Richard got the picture and went on to go to see Eleanor. At least there is some pleasant company here he thought to himself.
Usually on Wednesdays Eleanor sees him coming and opens her front door right as he steps up to it. There was no window on this side of her apartment so she must have stood on the other side of her door looking through the peephole waiting for him to arrive. It was somewhat unnerving knowing that he was being watched as he strolled up the sidewalk but at the same time he found it rather endearing. He meant that much to her that she would spend her time looking and waiting for his arrival. Today however, she was not watching for him. He reached the front door and there was nothing. He tried knocking on the door but there was no response. After a few seconds he tried again this time calling her name. Again, there was no response. His hand reached for the doorknob and attempted to turn it. The knob turned with his hand and he could feel the door begin to push only to be stopped by the deadbolt above the door lock. He would have called her cell phone or home phone… only Eleanor had neither. At one point in time in their conversations she had told him rather sadly that there was no one expected to call her anymore since his father had passed.
He stared at the closed door for a moment thinking of his next move. What if she had fallen and broken her leg, or worse her hip? How could he get into the apartment to check on her? Lori. Lori had the key to every apartment in the complex. As soon as he thought of asking her he shook it off. He didn’t want to ask her for anything unless he was absolutely sure. It just wasn't worth the trouble.
As he thought he walked along the perimeter of Eleanor’s apartment. To the right of her front door the building’s faded wood siding stretched out until it reached a corner. When he reached the corner and turned left her apartment continued. There was an older sidewalk, now more of a dirt path, which went along this side of the apartment building. It was just wide enough to fit two people walking side by side. To his right there was a sudden and dramatic slope that went downwards into a mass of large trees and bushes. The foliage was thick and he couldn’t see through to the other side. A little ways down the sidewalk and to his left her apartment’s large multi-pane window came into view. This window was Eleanor’s pride and joy. Sometimes when her and Richard had their meetings she would sit in her rocking chair facing this window watching the squirrels, chipmunks, birds, and any other animal that would show up. The window’s shades were never drawn and as Richard approached he could see exactly what he had hoped. Her apartment was in full view from this window.
There were three rather large ivy shrubs that were in front of her window. Each one was trimmed expertly so that it rose just below her window. They spread out widely spanning three to four feet in each direction. Numerous red berries adorned each bush. Behind the shrubs there was a small gap between the building and the hedge. Richard wedged himself in at the beginning of the hedge and began walking sideways until the large window came into full view. I hope she isn’t in there, or else I’m going to give her a hell of a scare he thought to himself. As he stepped into place in front of the window his foot landed on something other than dirt. There was a soft wet sound as his foot landed. At first whatever he had stepped on didn’t give way but as his weight came down it seemed to smash under his boot. As soon as his boot landed a sickening smell began fill his nostrils. When he looked down all he could see was the ivy. What the hell is down there?
He bent down as best he could and pushed the ivy out of his way with his hands. After some effort he had all the ivy pushed back so that there was a clear view of the ground. He immediately regretted his decision. Alongside the wood siding of the apartment building just below the window were numerous blood stains. It looked someone had thrown a rotten tomatoes against the building. The blood exploded out in all directions. Some of the stains were old and others looked as if it happened only last night. Beneath his feet lay a pile of assorted animals. There were rabbits, squirrels, woodpeckers, even snakes. Each animal looked like it had been thrown into the building with immense force. It was a rabbit that he had smashed under his boot. Or, what was left of the rabbit. It looked like it had been there for at least a week. The pungent stench of death filled the air. The rabbit that he had stepped on was covered i
n maggots and other types of worms, bugs, and insects. Some of the bugs began to crawl up his boot looking for something else to digest.
Richard jumped over the bushes as best he could. He had to get his foot out of that pile of death. It wasn’t much of a jump. The ivy caught his left foot and he ended up doing an ungraceful roll onto the ground just past the hedge. Immediately, he stood up and looked at his right foot for any remaining bugs. An assortment of white maggots had clung to the top of his boot in between his shoe laces. A few had even begun to work their way up to his cuff of his pant leg. He practically ripped the shoe off of his right foot and shook it the best he could. When his shoe was clean of them he used the same shoe to violently brush his pant leg removing the last of the offenders. Richard let out a sigh of relief and began to gather himself again. He had never been a fan of bugs and coupling that with the terrible stench of rotting corpses he about lost what little food he had eaten.
After a moment he remembered why he was here. He decided to approach the window again but to be extremely mindful of the ‘friends’ below. Richard approached from the right side of the bushes this time all the while pulling the limbs of the bush back and looking at the ground before he took any steps. There would be no mistakes this time. When he finally reached the window he had to cup his hands over his eyes in order to get a good look inside. As he scanned from right to left everything looked like the way it always did. Her dining room table was in the far right corner neatly cleaned and polished. The two chairs were pushed in as far as they would go on either side of the table. Eleanor’s rocking chair was positioned facing the window but it was vacant. There was a small end table next to the rocker that was filled with piles of yarn and what looked like a crochet needle. Just behind her rocking chair was her leather couch. The couch faced towards the inside of the room so all Richard could see what the back and the far right armrest. As he stared at the couch he saw something move near the couch. It was almost like a shadow had been cast over the area. That was when he saw her, or part of her. Just past the right armrest of the couch he saw the unmistakable hand of Eleanor’s hanging off the side of the armrest. She was either asleep on the couch, or something else had happened.
Close Your Eyes: A Horror Story Collection Page 29