by Aiden James
“I thought you might’ve forgotten,” said Norm, as soon as he joined him on the patio. He took one last drag from his cigarette and mashed the butt on top of the stone lion closest to him, flicking it out onto the front lawn. “How about Mario’s today?”
“I can go for Italian, I guess,” said David, who led the way to his car.
Along the way to the restaurant, Norm brought David up to date on what he missed since last week, which consisted of several new clients the firm took on and the two corporate audits still in progress. He also included the latest ‘hot little thing’ that fell within range of his radar.
A dedicated hedonist since college, Norm had just begun detailing his latest sexual conquest when they reached Mario’s parking lot. In most other ways like brothers, David hated the continual reports on his sex life.
“So, did you ever find the place Ned told you about?” asked Norm, lighthearted, once seated at a semi-private table in one corner of the restaurant and had ordered lunch and a couple of Heinekens.
“Actually, we did,” said David, which brought an immediate look of surprise from Norm. “I guess he’s not as full of bullshit as you’ve thought, huh?”
“I guess not,” he agreed, chuckling before taking a long drink from his beer. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me the finer points I’m just dying to hear about. Are you, now?” He smirked.
“I never have before,” David replied, his smile coy. He paused to take a quick sip from his beer. “Let’s just say ole Ned Badgett’s ‘Lover’s Lane’ in Cades Cove, hidden away in the Great Smoky Mountain wilderness, was the best damned place to reignite the spark we’ve been missing lately.”
He took a bigger drink while Norm nodded his head as if even more envious. David knew better, that the matter would disappear from the landscape of Norm’s sullied mind before day’s end, replaced by some other lurid fantasy.
“Well…it’s too bad the place is so goddamned far away,” said Norm, his sly grin wide enough to reveal the full line of expensive veneers. “I suppose the next lonely legal assistant I screw will have to settle for the spa in Glenwood Springs or a little ole chalet in Aspen.”
“I suppose so,” David agreed, wishing for a moment that Norm could relate to his monogamous orientation.
The conversation’s focus shifted back to business once their food arrived, and they returned to the office by two o’clock. David attacked the remaining stack of paperwork with a vengeance. Hoping to get through it all by six, he worked without a break and thought he might successfully reach the goal, when he received a call from Nancy just before 5 p.m.
“Who is it, Nan’?” he said tersely into the phone’s receiver.
“It’s Miriam,” she replied, sounding worried. “I know you’re swamped, but your wife says she needs to speak with you right away. It’s an emergency!”
***
“‘See if you can transfer my appointments from three-thirty on up to four-thirty to Eileen and Jim, will you Mary?”
Miriam hurriedly removed her white office coat, being mindful to grab her stethoscope and penlight before handing the coat to Mary Lavoi. She placed the tools inside her top desk drawer and reached for her purse and jacket next to her chair.
“It’s that bad?” asked Mary.
Her light gray eyes misted with concern, and she pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. Miriam’s longtime assistant stood by the door to her boss’s office holding Miriam’s work coat. Tall and slender, with fragile bones from arthritis that belied her face and dark hair’s youthful appearance, Mary seemed unsure of whether to hang up the coat and get busy making arrangements for Miriam’s patients or give her a hug.
“I don’t know for sure,” said Miriam, rushing to the doorway. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard Jill cry like that!”
It had already been a crazy day for her at Littleton Children’s Clinic, the pediatric practice she shared with two other physicians. Most of her patients from the previous Thursday and Friday had insisted on seeing only her, crammed in between other appointments today. Now this to top it off!
“Go on home,” said Mary. She placed her hand gently on her shoulder. “I’ll take care of everything, Miriam. It will all work out fine.” She smiled and limped toward the clinic’s reception area.
“Thanks, Mary, you’re a life saver,” Miriam told her, and headed to the building’s side exit that opened to the employee parking lot. She turned to look back at her before opening the exit door. “I’ll call you as soon as I find out more about what’s happening in our house.”
Miriam stepped outside and nearly ran to where the forest green Chrysler waited. The minivan sped out of the parking lot while Mary watched through a small window next to the clinic’s lone fax machine. She frowned, shaking her head until the van disappeared from view.
Chapter Seven
“It’s your turn to take Sadie out, Chris,” said Tyler, raising his head above the cushioned top of the sofa. His brother and sister had just arrived home from school.
“Why didn’t you take her out when you got home, Ty?”
Christopher laid his backpack next to his sister’s in the dining room before moving into the kitchen for a snack. The clock read 2:48 p.m. He peered into the living room and frowned at his older brother lying on the sofa with his eyes glued to the television screen.
“I did,” said Tyler, his tone perturbed. “But she’s over here whining like she needs to go out again.”
Christopher grumbled an inaudible response and then called Sadie over to him. Rather than jump up and paw at his waist like she normally did, she curled up at his feet with her tail tucked between her legs.
“Did you make a mess in here, Sadie?” he asked sweetly.
As if his tone was serious, she looked up meekly at him. Worried, he began investigating the main floor, and the dog followed him until he reached the dining room where she stopped and growled.
“It’s all right, Sadie. What’s wrong?” She whined and let him pick her up. He searched the dining room, but didn’t see or smell any dog urine or feces. He shivered from a cold draft. “Let’s go outside, girl.”
He carried her over to the back door, and once outside she climbed out of his arms. She seemed okay now, so he let her roam the backyard while he turned to go back inside. Jillian stood waiting for him in the doorway.
“Mom said this morning that Auntie Jan will be by to check on us between four-thirty and five,” she advised. “She wants us to have our homework done before she gets here.”
“What about Ty?” Christopher asked, brushing past her on his way back inside the house. “He has to do his homework too.”
“Already done,” said Tyler, raising his head above the sofa’s cushions again so they could both see him from the kitchen. “All that’s left for me is to study for a history quiz on Wednesday.”
“Why are you always so lucky?” she asked him, glancing back at the load of books visible within the mesh sides of her backpack leaning against the dining room doorframe. Life as a sixth grader was so unfair. “I can’t wait until I’m in the eighth grade!”
“Yeah, well it’ll probably be a lot harder for you then, too, since I’m the one with all the brains in this family!”
“That’s not true and you know it!” she fumed. She grabbed a Gatorade from the refrigerator and picked up her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder before walking into the living room. She paused next to the TV. “When Mom gets home, I’m telling her you said that. Come on, Chris!”
She motioned for Christopher to follow her and stepped toward the foyer and stairway. But he remained in the living room, mesmerized by the same cartoon that engrossed Tyler.
“Chris!”
“Huh?... Oh, I’ll do my homework here in the living room, Jill,” he told her, and went to the dining room to get his backpack.
“Suit yourself!” she called to him, disdainful, as she climbed the stairs. “If you’re not done with your homework b
y the time Auntie Jan’s here, I’ll let her know you’ve been goofing off watching that stupid show!”
She reached the landing and limped down the hallway to her bedroom. The stairs always made it hard on her hip, but she insisted on her bedroom being on the second floor with everyone else—despite her dad’s offer to make the den the very best room in the house for her. Once inside her bedroom, she closed the door and laid out her books on the bed by subject matter. She planned to systematically attack her studies that afternoon, with the hope of enough time leftover to visit her closest friend, Marianne Stevens, who lived directly across the street. She set the Gatorade down on her nightstand and picked up her IPod, pulling the headphones over her ears. Then she sat on the bed in front of her books.
Knock…knock…knock.
“Who’s there?”
No response. She got up from the bed and went to her door. No one was there.
That’s a little weird.
“Chris?...Ty?” she asked, peering down the hall in either direction.
The hallway empty, she heard her brothers downstairs commenting on the coolness of a wicked battle scene in a “Naruto” re-run on TV. She shrugged her shoulders and closed the door behind her. Just as she got comfortable on the bed, another three knocks resounded against her door.
“Who keeps doing that?” Irritated, she remained seated on the bed. She pictured her brothers snickering quietly on either side of her doorway, just waiting for her to open the door and step out into the hallway so they could give her a good scare. “I’m not at all amused or afraid, so why don’t you go back downstairs!”
Jillian stared at the door when she received no response, debating whether to go open it again. Her leg muscles were tensed in preparation to leap from the bed and hobble to the door once her annoying siblings knocked again.
Knock…Knock…KNOCK!!
The force of the last knock shook the door and caused her to shrink back. More angry than afraid, she stomped over to the door and swung it open. Again, no one was there.
You guys think you’re so-o-o smart!
She stormed out of her room and nearly ran to Tyler and Christopher’s bedrooms, checking the closets and under their beds, thinking she’d find them hiding there. When she couldn’t find either one, she boldly moved through the bathroom and guestrooms. She even checked her parents’ bedroom and master bath.
As she passed by the top of the stairs, she heard her brothers’ boisterous laughter erupt from the living room. How’d they get back down there so fast? She paused to listen, until her anger got the better of her.
“You both had better stop messing with me!!” she yelled down the stairway. “‘You hear me??”
“What the hell?” Tyler replied from the living room.
She heard him get off the couch and soon saw his tousled hair as he peered up the stairs at her.
“What are you talking about?” he asked. Christopher’s face appeared in the stairway beneath his chin. “We’ve been down here watching TV, which is a heck of lot more interesting than bothering you!”
“Yeah, right!” She folded her arms across her chest like their mom would do when agitated. “I’m supposed to believe it was the ‘boogey-man’ up here knocking on my door, huh?”
“We don’t know what you’re talking about, Jill,” said Tyler, snickering smugly. “‘Sounds like a personal problem to me.”
“Oh, yeah?! Well, jerk, if you mess with me again, then you get to be the one to tell Auntie Jan why I didn’t have enough peace and quiet to get my homework done!”
She stormed back to her bedroom and slammed the door. Tyler rolled his eyes and then he and Christopher returned to the living room.
Alone again in her bedroom, Jillian angrily climbed back onto her bed. It took a moment to regain her composure. When ready to resume her homework, she slipped on the headphones to her IPod. She paged through her math book, a pencil in her mouth and the latest Justin Timberlake tune playing in her ears, when something heavy slammed against her door.
It shook the wall on either side of the door. She’d been looking down at her book, but peripherally saw the door buckle inward for an instant, to the point it might splinter.
What would make it do that??
Her anger quickly evaporated, giving way to instinctive fear. Something was very wrong here. She removed her headphones and slowly got off the bed, holding her pencil in front of her as a weapon to protect her from whatever lurked on the door’s other side.
“Is that you, Ty?... Chris?”
Her mouth dry as sandpaper, she prayed they were the pranksters. When no one responded she forced herself to move forward, her legs like lead weights. Much more cautious this time, she opened the door.
Craning her neck out into the deserted hall she looked both ways once more. Meanwhile, she heard her brothers laughing again downstairs in the living room. It seemed unlikely they had done this. More like impossible.
She stepped out into the hall and almost called down to them. But she’d never hear the end of it if either one saw her so frightened. She returned to her bedroom, looking over her shoulder as she stepped inside.
After closing the door, the hair on the back of her neck began to arise and tingle. An incredible chill crossed her left side near where her dresser sat, creating two waves of gooseflesh along her left arm and leg. The ‘feel’ of her bedroom had changed. Always the coziest room in the house during winter and a problem in summer when the sun’s heat mercilessly pelted the back windows, a frigid unfriendliness now embraced every inch.
While deciding whether to flee or not, three more evenly spaced knocks resounded. This time they came from her dresser, and each one resonated from inside the Queen Anne styled antique, an heirloom from her mother’s side of the family.
She let out a frightened yelp and dropped the pencil on the floor, where it rolled under her bed. The dresser began to shake, growing steadily more violent until the dresser’s legs lifted into the air. It slammed heavily upon the floor with a deafening crash. Unable to move at first, Jillian stumbled past the possessed antique and back out into the hallway. Screaming.
Chapter Eight
David arrived home shortly after six o’clock. The autumn sun had already dipped below the foothills, and darkness shrouded the metropolitan sprawl that includes Littleton. The porch and security lights were on, and the fact Tyler had already taken the past week’s bagged garbage out to the curb brought a smile to his face. The large green trash container barely held the extra Chinese take-out and pizza boxes his kids had subsisted on since the past Thursday when he and Miriam flew to Tennessee.
Then he thought about his latest conversation with Miriam, and his daughter’s pleas in the background for him to come home right away, which compelled him to do just that. Jillian preferred her mom when it came to seeking comfort. But she always came to him when she wanted protection, and that worried him. After promising Ned his work would be caught up by tomorrow night at the latest, he grabbed his coat, laptop, briefcase and left.
“I’m glad you’re here,” said Miriam, right after he stepped through the front door. “Sorry about this.”
Jillian’s head rested on her mom’s lap as they sat together on the sofa, her eyes red from tears. Tyler sat in the recliner, his attention completely absorbed by the PSP he held in his lap. Christopher, drawn to the same diversion, stood next to the chair and looked over his brother’s shoulder. Only Janice seemed as upset as Miriam and Jillian, seated in the loveseat.
“It’s okay, babe,” said David. He hung his coat on the hall tree and joined everyone in the living room.
“Everything’s going to be fine, sweetie,” he assured Jillian, pausing to kiss Miriam and massage his daughter’s shoulder. “Your mom told me you heard something up in your room. Would you like to tell me about it?”
Jillian sniffed and nodded ‘yes’.
“Nothing happened, Dad,” said Tyler, looking up from his game player. Christopher nodded an emphatic
agreement to his brother’s assessment.
“You weren’t there!” Outraged, Jillian sat up, pointing meanly at her brothers. Miriam restrained her from going after them.
“That’ll be enough, Ty!” scolded David. “I asked Jillian what happened—not you. As soon as I get her story, you and Chris can fill me in on other details.”
“Yes sir,” said Tyler, sullenly.
“All right, Jill,” said David. “Tell me what happened.”
“Someone was in my room today.” She cleared her throat before going on. “They knocked on my door and then got mad and slammed something against it that shook the entire wall!”
She looked up into his face, imploring him with glistening green eyes to believe her.
“I couldn’t see who it was….like they were invisible!”
First the dog, then me last night, now my baby girl.... Dismayed, he wondered again about the taunting voice he heard last night. Maybe he didn’t imagine it after all. He nodded and looked up at the ceiling while picturing what happened upstairs that afternoon.
“Are you done, Jill?” Tyler looked up again from the PSP, turning it off and retracting the recliner in one fluid movement. “If you are, I’d like to give Dad some valuable information before he wastes most of tonight looking for someone he’ll never find!”
Jillian’s face flushed with anger, ready to lash out at him again.
“It’ll be all right, Jill,” Miriam whispered in her ear. “Daddy will take care of this. Trust him.”
“Go ahead, Ty,” said David. “Let’s hear what you’ve got to add to this.”
“Well, Dad, first let me point out that me and Chris spent the afternoon down here in the living room. But Jill accused us of knocking on her door.” He paused to look over at Jillian and his mom, and then over at Janice. “She accused us of doing it twice. We stayed downstairs, like I said. We never heard any knocks, and we certainly didn’t hear the ‘big bang’ she claims shook her wall. God knows we would’ve heard it in the living room if something really happened.”