Dark Side: The Haunting

by J. M. Barlog

  Jenny was home. And nothing else mattered at this moment.

  After propping a trio of marshmallow pillows behind her, Warren kissed her softly. The scar made her lips feel different, but Warren buried his observation. He held his kiss until his lungs forced him to release her.

  WELCOME HOME JENNY - I LOVE YOU - WARREN, was emblazoned on a banner which hung on the wall opposite the bed. The very wall that had previously had her dressing table mirror before it. The banner only accentuated the mirror’s absence more. But in reading the banner, Jenny’s mind flashed reflections of the face she had witnessed in the hospital—as if the mirror had still been in place. The images sent waves of revulsion through her before dissipating into smoke. Warren’s well-meaning intentions had accomplished more to harm than to charm.

  “You’re home now,” he forced out, his breathing burdened by an unbreakable weakness for smoking. “I love you more than life itself,” he whispered, clutching her hands in his with such fierceness that the blood stopped flowing through her fingers.

  Jenny thought she detected a tear in Warren’s green eyes. This moment, though anticipated for weeks, seemed less than Jenny had hoped it would be.

  Running her fingers through his collar-length hair reminded Jenny of the wonderful length hers had once been. Before...

  “I-I...l-lov...”

  Frustration flamed in Jenny’s eyes.

  “It’s okay, Jenny. I love you.”

  Warren had festooned strings of white carnations over the door frames and situated vases of fresh flowers on every surface in the room. With all the color, one would have thought they had entered a florist shop.

  “T-this i-is...”

  “I’m glad you like it. I wanted it to be special for you.”

  “Where’s M-mr. C-Chips?”

  “Outside. I wanted this moment just for us. I’ll bring him in after you’re settled.”

  Jenny smoothed her hand across their comforter, thick with down and fashioned with lavish splashes of orchids. Stitched painstakingly by her grandmother’s own hands, used by her mother before her death and given to Jenny and Warren on the occasion of their marriage from her father, who himself had since passed away. This was their bed. The place where they made love. Yet, though she thought it, she was unable to feel the passion two lovers shared here. Those wonderful memories they made together during the nights and mornings and afternoons of their marriage seemed now distant and vague. Something seemed profoundly absent from this moment—something had been stolen from her.

  She had contemplated this moment every waking minute for the last three weeks. Home—there’s no place like home. Home is where you are safe. But now as she experienced it, it seemed empty; she had expected so much more.

  “I love you, Jenny.”

  “I-I love you, t-too, W-Warren.”

  “That was great, Sweetheart. You’re improving already.”

  The words rumbled out like jagged rocks. Rocks that Jenny had to spit to get out. Now she was glad they were gone.

  “I-I w-wan...”

  “It’s okay. Morrison said to expect this. We’ll work through it together.”

  Jenny nodded, squeezed his hand, then let every muscle in her body go limp. She held no doubts that Warren really loved her. No doubt that she could find in her mind. But then again, there were now places where she was unable to look. Dark corners that held dark secrets. Something felt wrong; something still hovering beyond her understanding.

  “Everyone misses you. Later, after you rest, I’ll read you the cards. Everyone sends their love and prayers.”

  Warren opened the window a crack to allow a fresh stream of air to swirl into the room. Did he intentionally keep his back toward her now? Did he not want to look at her?

  “I’m to keep you in bed. Just like on our honeymoon.”

  Warren’s mischievous wink brought a forced smile from Jenny. A smile that sent an obviously empty message. Jenny recalled only fleeting visions of that time and the pleasures they had shared.

  Warren buried his disappointment by feigning interest in the arrangement of the flowers beside her bed. His eyes studied the vase for a long moment.

  “There that’s better, don’t you think?”

  “Sure.

  “Do these need more water?”

  Jenny offered no answer. Instead, she slowly scanned her surroundings, searching for articles that might trigger her memory. She sought the reassurance of a photograph, a color, or an even a household object that might open—just a crack—the door that had closed on her memory. She remembered so much: the wedding pictures on the bureau, the bric-a-brac she brought back from their Cayman Islands honeymoon five years ago. Yet she drew only blanks when she sought to recapture those days leading up to that moment.

  “I-I c-can’t see...a-anyone yet. You understand?”

  “Don’t worry, I asked Bridget and Kate to give you time. They understand what you’re dealing with.”

  “They k-k-know about...”

  “No. Only that you need time.”

  Warren was quick to take her hand into his to reassure her of his loyalty. He would never say anything that might make her recovery more difficult.

  Jenny’s relief shone upon her face, though her free hand rose instinctively to cover her scar.

  “I thought, only when you’re ready, maybe we could have a little homecoming get-together for your closest friends.”

  Warren detected immediate anxiety rising up into Jenny’s eyes. He had erred. This was something he should have waited to talk to her about. Only Jenny would know when she was ready to face her friends.

  “S-s-sure. When I’m ready. I a-appreciate them allowing me the time. I don’t think I could h-h-have faced anyone but you during this.”

  “I’ve also removed the telephone, so you won’t be disturbed by my incoming calls, and I’ve set up a rollaway bed in the den for myself.”

  Jenny’s face flashed first surprise, then disappointment, and finally hurt. What did he mean? Was she now so hideous that he could no longer be close to her?

  Warren responded quickly and decisively, kneeling beside the bed, taking her hands into his and kissing her gently on her lips.

  “It’s best if you had a few days alone in the bed. Morrison cautioned me not to rush into anything physical. We’ll have plenty of time to make up for it when you’re better. That’s all.”

  But was that all? Jenny thought. What would Warren do when he saw her? Jenny’s weak smile disappeared when she kissed him. During that intimate moment, something shuddered through her mind. Warren had been without her for more than six weeks. The man who believed getting out of bed was the second thing you did upon awakening. Sex to Warren was a daily vitamin. He must be a saint to have endured through this.

  But the very thought of making love sent an ocean of panic through her. That scar across her stomach repulsed her. How would Warren react? What would be in his eyes when he saw her naked? What would be in his mind when he touched her? What if...she could no longer excite him?

  Mr. Chips, the Garrett’s perpetually perky Scottish terrier, bounded up the stairs, leaping onto the mattress to greet Jenny. Warren’s quick arm shot out just in time to intercept the mutt before he could reach her. All Mr. Chips could comprehend was that Jenny was home, and he was excited to see her.

  Warren clutched the dog tightly, bringing him just close enough to allow him to sniff and lick Jenny’s outstretched hand while his nub of a tail wagged gleefully back and forth.

  This was the way Chips remembered it. Jenny, Warren and him.

  “I’m glad to see you, too, Mr. Chips,” Jenny said.

  Her voice and gentle stroking calmed the dog, and after a minute of begging on his haunches, Mr. Chips circled himself into a ball and settled down beside the bed. Everything had returned to way it used to be. Almost.

  4

  Jenny barely grasped her first four days at home. Pain brought Demerol and Demerol brought sleep or, at best, a state
of semi-wakefulness. The days seemed nothing more than a smear of time that jumbled her surroundings. She slept between her meals and found the least exertion completely exhausting. Only the Demerol enabled her to slumber pain-free through the night, though occasionally an electrifying jolt would sneak through to steal her from sleep.

  After finishing all her breakfast on the fifth day—Warren insisting she consume everything he prepared—Jenny browsed the current issue of Advertising Age then dozed until early afternoon. She awakened mid-afternoon to a steaming bowl of chicken soup and crackers, following which she drifted off into a long nap.

  While Jenny slept, Warren spent the afternoon hours locked away in his cherry wood-paneled den, where an assortment of medieval accouterment adorned the walls. From chest plates, to gauntlets, to swords, Warren surrounded himself with pieces of a time when men’s nerves were tested by steel instead of silicon.

  His computer was the primary occupant of his desk, a paradox to the centuries-old decor. It updated columns of green and blue numbers spread across the screen. The market today seemed unusually restless. Warren had predicted it, allowed himself a momentary indulgence in the accolade, then focused his concentration on the rows of numbers changing on the screen. One might have thought he was playing a casino game the way the numbers kept flipping. But this was no game. His diligence and patience were beginning to pay off. Warren was ready to make a move. With a predatory eye, he tracked oats, corn and pork bellies, following each price fluctuation, waiting for that exact right moment to sell.

  In commodities, as in many other businesses, timing is everything. It took steel nerves and a cast-iron gut to win. He felt akin to the medieval knights, and realized how they must have felt moments before the battle. In today’s hotly-contested arena, however, multitudes play, a few succeed, but most die a brutal death. Trading commodities was not for wimps or the faint of heart.

  Warren knew his time was running out; he had to begin Jenny’s dinner shortly. If pork bellies closed on the uptick, he’d have another chance at a profit tomorrow. If not, a false move now could wipe out the entire week’s gains. Six-figure gains that could evaporate the way alcohol evaporated on a hot skillet.

  The pressure was boiling over now. Warren was hanging on by a thread. A tenuous thread that could snap at any second.

  “Come on,” he muttered, his eyes bouncing between the numbers in the columns on the computer screen and the clock ticking off seconds in the upper left corner.

  ****

  The nimble fingers of a gentle breeze luffed the window curtains and brushed across Jenny’s face while she slept. She felt them pulling at her, drawing her out of her slumber. They lasted only a moment and seemed like the fabric of a dream.

  Moments later they returned. This time though, they were more like the low rumble of distant thunder crawling across a crowded sky. In a matter of seconds, the rumble dissipated.

  Jenny refused to be taunted and settled back into a shallow sleep, her body leaden against the mattress, her eyelids refusing to pull up.

  Again it came. A vibration of objects moving against each other.

  Jenny lifted one eye, then the other. The light stung and her mouth turned cottony. What had taken her out of her sleep? A fear began to swell inside, though she found no reason for it to root.

  The noise came, this time as a short burst.

  Jenny turned toward the source.

  A vase of wilted flowers toppled off the bureau, crashing to the floor. Then another and another.

  Jenny screamed—grabbing at her side. The sudden spasm sent a wall of fire into her head.

  Warren half stumbled into the bedroom, stopping with bare feet inches from glass shards splayed across the hardwood floor.

  “I’ll kill that friggin’ dog!” he scowled. Then he turned to Jenny. “Are you okay?”

  “Just some sharp pains. What happened?”

  Mr. Chips bounded up the staircase, a guttural growl rumbling from deep in his throat. He arrived just in time to confront a scolding and be towed back down the stairs by his collar. He would spend the remainder of the day outside without water and food. Warren secreted a special hatred for the dog. One that he had been free to unleash while Jenny was in the hospital. One that he kept buried otherwise, because Jenny loved the stupid animal so.

  Without displaying any signs of his anger or frustration, Warren returned with the vacuum, an armful of hoses, and shoes to protect his feet. He silently and meticulously removed every bit of glass. When he finished, he stared at the water rings left by the vases on the bureau. Rings clearly at least three inches from the edge of the bureau. Warren had made certain to place them far enough on the interior to prevent such an accident.

  “Warren, Chips came from downstairs. He couldn’t have been responsible.”

  “What? Sure he was. How else could those vases have fallen? Chips ran into the bureau and knocked them over. He’s going to...oh no!”

  Warren dropped the vacuum with a crash. He dashed to his den, muttering something about pork bellies. Jenny endured a long, continuous string of gutter-mouth vulgarities that reached her bedroom when Warren pulled up the latest price update on the screen. He had missed an opportunity to take a hefty profit. Six figures down the crapper.

  “Damn that friggin’ dog!” he wailed from down the hall, as if cleaning up his language now could somehow erase what he had said earlier.

  Jenny found herself staring at the bureau for a long time after Warren’s departure. Mr. Chips had not been in the room when she opened her eyes, nor did she see him run out after the vases crashed to the floor.

  After a dinner of pasta with olive oil, Warren recounted for Jenny those blank days leading up to the accident. He described their hours together and gave Jenny insight into where she would have been during those times they were apart. However, he stopped short of recounting that fateful Friday night. Those missing days, and exactly how many Jenny had no way of being certain, were at the center of her questions, the heart of her curiosity. Why couldn’t she remember? In her mind, the accident never existed. She was doing something, although she wasn’t exactly sure what it was, then she came to in the hospital after the accident and a brief coma.

  Warren never mentioned the accident, nor did Jenny venture to ask. Each time Warren said anything that would lead to that night, he would change abruptly and begin something new. Listening to his descriptions, it seemed more like Warren was relating to Jenny the events of someone else’s life—since she could remember none of what Warren told her.

  A secret part of her relished that such a horrible experience had been erased from her memory. Another, darker part, haunted her for answers, refusing to rest until the truth came to the surface.

  By the end of the sixth day, Jenny’s stutter had diminished to only occasional slips. Warren’s insistence that she parrot everything she said, finding that her second iteration was always perfect, had paid off. A small but significant triumph Jenny lofted high like Olympic gold. As Morrison had predicted, she was getting better, improving with every hour. Yet her memory refused to reappear.

  She resolved that she would overcome any impediment the accident had forced upon her. But as she lay alone in bed that night, listening to the wind draw the branches against her window, she had no inkling of the terror poised to invade her life.

  With only faint moonlight seeping around the edges of her curtains, exhaustion drew her into a dreamless sleep. But soon afterward something plucked her out of her rest. An icy chill cut to her core.

  In that shallow light, she turned very carefully to observe a silhouette in the overstuffed chair beside her door. So fatigued was she though, that she said nothing, only smiled briefly and found her way back to sleep.

  With the morning’s light came Warren and a loaded breakfast tray. A spicy western omelette was today’s main fare, with wheat toast and English breakfast tea on the side. While Jenny devoured her food, Warren watched her from the chair, cleaning his wire-rimmed
glasses and smoking a cigarette.

  “You look tired this morning,” he commented. “You sleeping okay in here?”

  “I woke up last night. But you know that.”

  “How could I know that?” Warren asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “You could have joined me in bed.”

  Warren said nothing, but noticed her stutter had completely vanished.

  “Do you realize that was perfect?”

  “It’s o-okay. When I woke up, I saw you sitting in the chair.”

  “Jenny, I wasn’t in here last night. I worked in the den until about midnight, then I went to bed. Did I disturb you?”

  “No. I thought...I-I saw you, you were sitting in the chair just the way you are now. You were staring at me.”

  Warren said nothing, seemingly anxious to get started on his daily routine. He had to make up for yesterday’s lack of profitability. He pressed out his cigarette, placed the ash tray on Jenny’s night stand and left to get on-line with the markets.

  Jenny finished her meal in solitude.

  With her breakfast tray at the end of her bed awaiting Warren’s return, Jenny browsed through the Wall Street Journal with no particular interest in mind. Nothing interested her, though she knew that before the accident she had made the Journal part of her daily ritual. Something kept playing on the back of her mind. Something that refused to make its presence known.

  After about a hour, Warren returned to collect up the breakfast tray, kissing her gently first on the forehead and then on her lips before exiting. Downstairs, Warren cleaned up the kitchen, the occasional clamor of pan banging the counter drifting up to her. Warren, for the most part, was clumsy and anything but perfect; however, he was trying. And his culinary skills seemed to be better than Jenny had expected.

  After putting Mr. Chips out in the yard, Warren set to his daily work in the den. Jenny paused when she heard him tapping away at his computer keyboard. He stopped when the telephone rang, then started up again after a few minutes. Since there came no grumbling or outbursts of profanity, Jenny surmised that Warren’s day must be progressing on a positive note.