Something in the Dark

by Pamela Cowan

“Gee, let me think; a friend, a neighbor, one of the crew? How should I know? You stay there while I find out.”

  Austin moved to the living room’s picture window, pulled aside the edge of one of the drapes and peeked out.

  “It’s Muncie,” she declared.

  “Should I hide?” asked Will

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. You’re not his favorite person right this minute. You can hide in the guestroom. It’s down the hall, first door on the right. Stay there until he leaves. And be quiet.”

  Will slipped into the guestroom and pulled the door closed behind him, just before Austin heard the familiar knock on her front door. She opened it and stood aside as her brother strode in, pulling off his gloves.

  “Hey, where you been? I called earlier,” he said, moving past her into the living room.

  “Went to the nursery to do some work.” Austin turned and noticed that her and Will’s beer bottles were sitting on the coffee table. She picked them both up and carried them to the kitchen. “I’m turning into the world’s biggest slob these days,” she said apologetically.

  “Or a raging alcoholic.”

  “That too.”

  “I’m surprised you went back to the nursery all by yourself,” said Muncie.

  “I’m a big girl, you know.”

  “Yeah, but it must have been pretty scary.”

  “It was, sort of. At first I kept hearing noises but it was just my imagination. So, why were you trying to reach me?”

  “Oh, this house I’m working on, the one by the lake. I’m going to be out there tomorrow. I know it’s Saturday, but I thought maybe you could drop by. The owner would like an opinion on the landscaping. Maybe he’ll even hire you to design the whole thing. He’s got the money.”

  “Well, as you know, my social calendar is pretty full on Saturdays, but I suppose I could squeeze it in. What time?”

  “How about eleven? Then we could go to lunch afterwards?”

  “Sounds good to me. Well, I hate to kick you out, but I’m really tired.”

  “Me too. So, I’ll see you tomorrow?” Muncie asked.

  Putting her hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn, she said, “Sure. Tomorrow.”

  Austin waited until she heard Muncie’s car pull out of the driveway, than opened the door to the guest room, a misnomer for a room that contained nothing but some empty packing boxes and an ironing board.

  The room was empty. Will was gone. One corner of the curtain was stuck under the window. Austin freed it. He must have opened the window, climbed out, then closed the window behind him before running away. Austin stared up at the sky. The wind had swept the clouds away, which meant the night would be bitterly cold. Why had he run this time, she wondered. Had he told her the truth?

  No, she wasn’t going to ride that seesaw. The story he’d told her sounded weird enough to be true. He really was trying to avoid going to jail for stealing and wrecking his father’s car. It was too stupid and too sad. He had sounded so ready to give himself up to the police, to clear himself of the murder of Bunny.

  Had talking about his father reminded Will too much of the past? Did his running have less to do with facing the police than with facing his father? Austin was sure her guess was right. Until Will was ready to do that, he would just keep running.

  She poured the remains of their beers down the kitchen drain. The smell made her queasy. She remembered she hadn’t eaten all day.

  Unwrapping the partly thawed pizza she began to think about Blake’s invitation to dinner. She had promised to call him. What was she so worried about, she wondered: that this relationship would never make it, or that it would? Was she too independent? Too happy doing things her own way? She slid the pizza into the oven. The prospect of another night spent eating an unappetizing dinner alone then going to bed with some late night TV show for company was getting old. She decided she would call Blake, soon.

  Chapter 16

  Austin spent a few moments considering the amount of housework she had to do and decided that meeting Muncie at the Lake House early was a valid excuse for not doing it.

  They had named the house Muncie was building at the lake “The Lake House,” then laughed at their lack of creativity. It was as close to her ideal house as Austin could imagine. She wouldn’t mind wandering through it again, pretending it was being built for her. She knew she shouldn’t let herself fall in love with it. After all, she had her own house and, for all its chipped paint and scratched floors, it had its good points: hardwood floors, a view of the valley. But she had to admit, The Lake House could easily seduce her into being unfaithful.

  The house sat perched all by itself on a mini-peninsula that jutted into the lake. Austin drove up the narrow road, that wound through a forest of pine, juniper, and low growing bitterbrush, and on around the curving driveway, edged with blocks of natural stone, to the front of the house.

  As she pulled up, she noticed that the windows were installed and the cedar siding was up. From the outside the house appeared nearly complete, and even the dock was in place. A private dock, now that would be nice to own, she decided.

  She parked behind Muncie’s battered red and white Ford pickup, with its distinctive oversized contractor’s tool box, and the ladder racks he’d proudly welded together by himself. She switched off the ignition and gave herself a moment to take in the sweeping vista of the lake and the mist-shrouded hills on the far side.

  Beyond the hills, as if it were floating in the sky, was the snow-capped top of Mt. McLaughlin. She could only imagine what effect waking up to that view every morning would have on a person. It would be a little like waking up inside a really good dream. Of course you’d eventually realize it wasn’t a dream, so maybe not so great after all. She smiled at her ability to find sour grapes and let go of envy.

  Sighing, she climbed out of her truck, taking her clipboard with her. She planned to sketch the general layout of the grounds, then take the drawing home and do them on her computer. She had a great new software program that promised to turn her ideas into a professional-looking presentation, and she was dying to try it out on a real job.

  The cold, moist wind coming off the lake tore through her coat and Austin was glad to find the front door of the house unlocked. She ducked inside, out of the wind, and was immediately assailed by the smells of sawdust, sheetrock dust and propane fumes. In the center of the living room, in front of the massive stone fireplace, her brother’s propane heater was roaring, a sheet of controlled but still fearsome flame jetting loudly from one end of it.

  “Hey, anyone here?” she called.

  There was no answer, but she wasn’t surprised. The place was huge, the heater loud enough to drown out her voice. She looked up at the 24-foot high ceiling, admiring the open beams and imagining how things would look, once stain, and paint, and carpet were in place. The walls were up and taped but not yet textured and the floor was nothing but wide stretches of plywood.

  She wandered into the kitchen, calling Muncie’s name as she went. She spotted the door to the basement standing ajar and opened it wider. “Hey, you down there?” she called.

  Getting no answer, and realizing how dark it was below, she began to close the door. She never finished the movement. A hard shove between her shoulder blades sent her forward. She rammed, shoulder first, into the edge of the door jamb, then stumbled toward the steep stairs.

  Austin threw her hands up reflexively and her right hand caught the stair rail. She twisted, momentum half turning her, and slammed shoulder first into the wall. Her left hand joined her right in grasping the rail, and as soon as she felt stable she looked up to see who had pushed her. He was no more than a shadow, a distorted shape, surrounded by a corona of light.

  She watched in horror as the light that had framed him abruptly shrank to a narrow vertical band and then was gone. The sound of the slamming door echoed through the basementr and seemed to reverberate inside her head. She closed her eyes. A bright yellow rectangle filled the space
behind her eyelids. Maybe she could convince herself it was light and not just an afterimage. Maybe she could pretend this was just a game. Muncie must be playing a joke. That was all. He’d open the door any minute and say something sarcastic and funny. Only she knew that Muncie would never do such a thing. He knew her. He knew her fears. So where was he, and who was that, up there?

  She made her way to the landing and realized she’d only stumbled down two steps before catching herself. She reached through the darkness for the door. When she let go of the railing, the room seemed to spin around her, the landing to shift beneath her feet. Her hands found the door and slid across its smooth surface until she found the doorknob. She wrapped her hands around it, tried to turn it. She wasn’t surprised to find the door was locked. She tugged on it. The door was new and her brother, damn his competence, had hung it. It barely moved.

  The room grew hot. Not warm. Hot. She tried to take a deep breath but there wasn’t enough air and the room was spinning faster now. It was as if her hands on the doorknob were her only point of connection in the center of a whirling vortex, a vortex that was trying to pull her into the darkness, to throw her down the stairs, where it waited to swallow her whole. She could hear it down there, waiting, breathing, a hungry darkness whose power grew while hers waned. She couldn’t fight, couldn’t breathe. The doorknob was slick with sweat. Her hands were slipping. The room was turning, twisting. She fell into darkness.

  Chapter 17

  Austin’s next conscious thought was to note how bright the sun was. She could barely open her eyes against its glare, and the sound that pulsed in her ears was deafening.

  She fought to come fully awake, confused but certain she had been dreaming. Then she felt the hard floor beneath her and became aware that the roaring noise was real. She opened her eyes and was dazzled by the intense flame and heat of the propane heater, a jet of fire blasting only a few feet from her face.

  Instinctively, she pushed herself into a roll that took her away from the source of heat. She kept her watering eyes closed tightly, her cheek pressed against the cool surface of the floor. Touching her face with tentative fingers, she was relieved to learn she had not been burned despite her proximity to the intense flame. Memory of where she was rushed into her thoughts, followed closely by questions.

  How had she reached the living room? The last thing she remembered was being pushing into the basement, the door closing, catching at the rail to keep from falling down the stairs. Then there was nothing. Had she fallen down the stairs and hit her head?

  She opened her eyes. A few more tears slipped down her cheeks, but in moments her eyes began to adjust and she could see again. She noticed that her hands and arms were dotted with dark brown specks. She rubbed her thumb over one spot and it flaked away. Dried blood. Was she hurt? How badly?

  She got to her feet and stumbled toward the kitchen. The door to the basement was closed, but the bottom panel had been smashed to bits. Splinters of wood and torn bits of hard yellow foam that formed the door’s core littered the floor around it.

  She must have done that, she realized. She must have found a hammer or an axe or something and beaten on the door until she had broken a hole through. She was amazed by the evidence of her strength and grateful for her freedom.

  She took a few hesitant steps, her head pounding violently. She felt slightly woozy, as if she’d had a couple glasses of wine. She fought to clear her head. She had to think. Where was he? Where was the man who’d pushed her down the stairs? Who was he? And where was Muncie? What if the man was still here?

  She spotted a screwdriver lying on top of the plywood someone had placed across the kitchen counters to form a work surface. She knew granite counter tops had been special ordered but they hadn’t arrived yet. Eagerly she picked up the screwdriver, clutching it in front of her, just a little less afraid. What if she had to use it? Could she? Would it even be an effective weapon? She didn’t want to find out. She only wanted to find Muncie and get the hell out of here.

  She glanced through the front windows overlooking the lake. Muncie’s pickup was right where she’d seen it when she drove up. He had to be here. She looked past the fireplace to the staircase leading to the second floor. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was climb those stairs. She would be completely exposed, and who knew what might be waiting up there? It’s all right, she reassured herself, tightening her grip on the handle of the screwdriver. She still had the entire downstairs to explore. No need to go upstairs yet.

  Uncomfortably aware that she was staying downstairs out of fear, she began to search methodically from room to room. All the while she held a silent conversation with herself, berating herself for her cowardice. She had checked the utility room near the kitchen and was walking toward the hall to the downstairs bedrooms when the propane heater sputtered and died.

  The silence struck like a slap. She could hear her own panting breath, the blood surging with every beat of her heart. She hadn’t realized how much she had been counting on the roar of the heater to cover her steps, to mask her movements in case the man who had pushed her was still around. And she had been pushed, hadn’t she? She hadn’t just imagined it. She wasn’t having some sort of psychotic episode or a nervous breakdown. Though if she was, who could blame her? No, she’d been fine for years. She had worked through her problems, accepted her fears, conquered her depression. Besides, she had never imagined things before, not even when she was at her worst. She certainly hadn’t imagined Bunny.

  Immobilized by the silence, she spotted what she hadn’t known she’d been looking for. It was no larger than a dime and almost as perfectly round. It was the color of rust. She had no doubt what it was. She swallowed. The sound of scrub jays and wind rustling the pine branches outside reached her. There was a sudden popping noise, the sort of sound a house makes as it settles. She started.

  Wanting not to, but unable to take her eyes away, she looked at the drop of blood on the floor and then, at the periphery of her vision saw another, and when she looked beyond that yet another. She followed the trail of spots, some as small as the first, others wider and more oval in shape. She shook herself out of her unnatural focus on the blood when she came to their end and she found herself facing a closed door at the end of the hallway.

  She stood in front of the door for a long moment before she reached for the door knob. It felt cool and smooth in her hand. She could have happily stood there all day and most of the night admiring it, if that meant she would not have to turn it, push the door open.

  But she did.

  Chapter 18

  It was a bedroom. Not large enough for a master bedroom, perhaps meant for children or guests. The floor was covered with canvas drop clothes. The walls were freshly painted in a light shade of mocha, except for where the blood had splashed and run.

  Red is his favorite color, she thought inanely. She could see that Muncie was wearing his favorite red flannel shirt, tucked into faded, paint streaked jeans. He was on his back, his booted feet toward her, one knee bent, his face turned toward the wall. His dark hair was matted against the side of his face, held in place by blood, sticky and shining wet.

  What she would have done next, screamed or fainted or run she would never know, because at that moment Muncie moaned and moved his legs. She hurried to him, fell to her knees and saw the hammer. It had been dropped beside his hand, as if he had taken it up and swung it and. . .

  Ever hear the one about the guy they found with his hands tied behind him and five bullet holes in his back? Suicide, said the coroner. But that couldn’t be the punch line. That wasn’t even funny. Austin mentally shook herself, afraid of the strange twists her thoughts were taking.

  Then Muncie’s eyes opened and Austin saw with relief that he was conscious and aware.

  “Don’t move,” she said, “I’m going to find something to stop the bleeding.” She ran down the hall to the kitchen and the roll of paper towels she had seen there earlier. She ran back, tearin
g towels off and wadding them into a pad to hold against the wound.

  Sitting up with a groan, Muncie took them from her and held them to his head. Looking past Austin to the doorway he asked, “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Will.”

  “He was here?”

  “Who else would have done this?”

  “You saw him?”

  Muncie shook his head. “He must have snuck up on me. I didn’t hear him.”

  “How do you know it was Will?”

  Muncie shrugged and closed his eyes, then opened them suddenly. “Did you hear something?”

  Austin held her breath and listened. There was – something.

  “You need an ambulance. Where’s your cell phone?”

  “Batteries dead. Forgot to charge it. What about yours?”

  “Home on the charger.”

  “Obviously genetic,” Muncie quipped. Austin sighed with relief. If he could make jokes…

  “You can drive me to the hospital if you want. Ambulances are for rich folk.”

  “Are you sure?” Austin asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  She helped Muncie to his feet. He swayed dangerously at first, but then took one slow step after another. Their progress was slower and more awkward because Austin refused to relax her grip on the screwdriver she was still carrying. She left him leaning against the front of the house while she dashed to her truck and brought it around to the door. The brakes squealed as she came to a rocking stop, her driving as erratic as her nerves. With a sense that she was being watched, she helped Muncie into the passenger seat and belted him in. Then she climbed behind the wheel, locked the doors and finally put the screwdriver on the dash.

  Conscious of Muncie moaning softly beside her, she did her best to turn the truck without jerky movements and accelerated smoothly away from the house. As they bumped onto the main road, Austin caught a flash of white in the trees.