Long After Dark

by Greg F. Gifune

  “Why was this trip so last-minute?”

  “You need to call the doctor back, that fever’s boiling your brain.”

  “Answer me goddamn it!”

  “Where the hell do you get off speaking to me this way? Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “I’m not sure anymore.”

  “Neither am I.”

  She’s stalling…trying to think of an answer…

  “Our top competitor is coming to pitch these guys next week. I wanted to get the drop on them and get here first. I was confident if we did I could close the deal before they even had a chance, but there wasn’t time to play around and go through the usual rigmarole. We threw it together and made the move. I want this account.”

  Her explanation seemed reasonable—they all had so far—but Harry couldn’t shake the feeling that hiding somewhere within all that truth were more lies. “And you get what you want, don’t you,” he said, “one way or another.”

  “These innuendos are getting really tired.”

  “When Gloria couldn’t reach Searcy she called Brody Fay to get info on where you two were staying,” he told her.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, she’s calling Brody at home now? Wonderful. Aaron’s going to be mortified.”

  The postnasal drip had kicked in again. As Harry swallowed, a scratch tore across his throat and he began to hack.

  “I don’t like the sound of that cough. Seriously, maybe you should call the doctor back.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he gasped, forcing his way through the cough. “Brody Fay had no idea what Gloria was talking about. He knew nothing about any San Diego business trip.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “You expect me to believe the senior V.P. of the company doesn’t know you two are on such an important trip?”

  “Given the present circumstances at the company, yes, I do.”

  “He backpedaled and tried to cover for you.”

  “Cover for what?”

  “Why do you suppose he’d do that Kel, any idea?”

  “My guess is he was embarrassed.”

  “I bet.”

  “Harry, listen to me very carefully. Aaron just turned sixty-five. He’s retiring at the end of next year and hasn’t yet made a decision as to who his successor will be. Brody’s expecting to get the position but it’s not going to work out that way. He’s not the most competent guy, so Aaron’s been leaving him out of the loop lately, particularly in terms of the day-to-day activities of the other executives. He’s been reduced to more of a figurehead than anything at this point. So no, he wouldn’t necessarily be aware of this trip, it doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

  “Did you fuck Searcy?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Do I sound like I’m joking?”

  “No, unfortunately you don’t.”

  “It’s an easy question to answer. Or at least it should be.”

  “There’s nothing between Aaron and me. Nothing. OK?”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “We’re friends and coworkers. That’s all.”

  “Have you been fucking him all these years? Do you still crawl under his desk whenever he asks?”

  “My God, what a charming slew of questions.”

  “Oh cut the shit, Kelly. Pull that pretentious routine with the people you work with, not me. I’ve known you too long. I know you too well.”

  “And yet you believe this nonsense.”

  “Gloria said in your company this is common knowledge.”

  “What is? What exactly is common knowledge? Please, enlighten me.”

  “That you’ve been doing her husband for years.”

  “Doing? Wow, classy.”

  “Sorry, it’s not easy to find class in your boss bending you over his desk.”

  “Do you honestly expect me to defend myself against this bullshit?”

  “I expect the truth.”

  “You know what? Fuck you. You’re my husband. You’re supposed to protect and stand up for me. You’re supposed to defend my honor.”

  “You never needed me to do any of those things. You were always more than capable of doing them yourself.”

  “Well somebody had to.”

  “I never failed you in those areas and you know it.”

  “No, but you’re failing me now.”

  “Asking for the truth? Don’t you think I’m entitled to it?”

  “After all these years I assumed you already knew it.”

  “Did you fuck Aaron Searcy? It’s a simple question. Answer it.”

  “No. Why the hell should I?”

  “Do I have to keep going?”

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “But should I?” The sounds of traffic filled the void that followed.

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “And why is that?”

  He heard her swallow, draw a deep breath and exhale. “I don’t see the point. We love each other, we’re happy, we have a good life. Why do you want to destroy that?”

  “I don’t want to destroy anything. It’s being taken from me, ripped right out of me, and I’m trying to salvage whatever scraps are left.” His eyes moved to the bay window. “Whatever bits are still real.”

  “Harry, you’re exhausted and so sick with the flu you can barely string a coherent thought together. I’m a million miles away and right in the middle of—it doesn’t matter—just try to get some sleep, all right? I love you. You know that, I know you do. I love you.”

  He couldn’t decide whether to close his eyes or keep them open. No matter what he did, all he could see was her.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes. I heard you.”

  “I said I love you.” Her voice broke. She tried to cover it by clearing her throat. “More than anything in the world, and I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

  “Then why have you done this?”

  “Done what, Harry? I haven’t done anything.”

  It suddenly turned quiet, as if something had purposely engineered the silence. He moved closer to the bay window and stared into the night, heart pounding. “I think maybe you’re not who I thought you were. I think maybe you’re someone else. Someone I don’t know at all.”

  “I’m the same person I’ve always been,” she said, a level of desperation in her voice he’d never before heard. “I’m your wife and the mother of your child.”

  “That’s when you’re here, with me, with Garret. Who are you when you’re not here? Who are you then Kelly?”

  “The same person you fell in love with.”

  “No you’re not. I see glimpses of her now and then, but that’s about it.”

  “None of us stay exactly the same. We all age, we all grow.”

  “So who are you now? What have you grown into?”

  “A whore apparently.”

  It’s all dying it’s—I’m dying—it’s all coming down—so quietly. The world is crumbling to pieces without a sound...

  “This isn’t my fault, I—”

  “Fine,” she interrupted, “is that what you want to hear? Nothing’s your fault. You’re incurably innocent. It’s all me. I’m a tramp and a liar. I steal too. Sometimes I even jaywalk, litter and give arbitrary strangers handjobs all at the same time. I’m an outlaw slut of epic proportions.”

  “You think this is funny?”

  “I think it’s sad.”

  Pain ground along his jaw and up into his temples. “Yes, it is.”

  “But clearly it’s what you want.”

  “I want the truth.”

  “You decided what the truth was before you even gave me a chance.”

  “I’m giving you a chance right now.”

  “No, you’re trying to hurt and humiliate me.”

  “You’ve done that to yourself. You did it the first time you pulled your panties down in that fucking asshole’s office. You did it the first time you let Searcy
and that job rule your life, the first time you allowed him to turn you into someone else, an entirely different personality, one apart from me you thought I’d never know about.”

  “Stop,” she said softly, “just stop, will you?”

  “You did it the first time you let the old you die, the real you.”

  “Harry please,” she said, voice shaking as her tough exterior deteriorated.

  The rain…I wish the rain would come back…

  “I know I haven’t been perfect, Kelly, but I was always faithful. Always.”

  …come back and wash this all away…

  “I haven’t been perfect either,” Kelly said. “But I’m not the slut you and your new best friend Gloria are trying to make me out to be.”

  …wash it all away…and wash us clean…

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Any idea?”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  Tears filled his eyes. “Then I guess we’re even.”

  “Is this really what you think of me? Is this really who you think I am?”

  “Right now I have no idea who you are, no idea who anyone is.”

  “You can’t possibly believe this.”

  “You’re not working a client, Kel. It’s me. I know you’re lying.”

  “Lying about what?”

  “You and Searcy.”

  “I am not going to argue this with you,” she said sluggishly, as if she’d suddenly grown extremely tired. “I’m not doing it. I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Fine, we—we’ll talk when I get home.”

  “I may not be here when you get home.”

  “Don’t say that. You don’t mean that.”

  Suddenly Harry was freezing again. The night was coming closer, filling in the gaps, taking his air, wrapping around him like a cage of razor wire as memories of dark blood trickling from beneath Gloria’s scarf haunted him. “I can’t stop it,” he mumbled.

  “Harry,” she said, “this isn’t me, this—this isn’t us.”

  “Our life is a lie.”

  Maybe all of life is a lie. Not just ours—everyone’s—all of it, lies we convince ourselves are true because we want and need them to be more than the states of nirvana we aspire to. We need a reality we can believe in, something we can see and touch and experience, something we can hold on to when we feel alone and hopeless...

  “You can’t really believe that.”

  “You killed me, Kelly. You killed me. I’m already dead.”

  “I’m coming home,” she said. “I’ll cancel the rest of our meetings and see if I can catch a redeye tonight. This is ridiculous, you’re delusional.”

  “I have to go,” he said again.

  “Wait—”

  “I love you, Kelly. Despite everything, I really do. Sometimes I wish I didn’t. I wish I could stop. But I can’t.” Tears streamed his face, but like the words falling from his mouth, he made no move to stop them. “I remember when we fell in love. You were so young. God, we both were. Just kids really. You were so beautiful, and you had this amazing innocence. I loved you the minute I saw you. And I knew you loved me. We had something special, something most people never know. And you took it all away, Kel. You tossed it aside like garbage, you just gave it away. You let that fucker have it, you let him turn you into someone you’re not, you allowed yourself to become his little whore and you killed me, you killed us. I think the saddest part is that you still don’t seem to have any idea what this has done to you, how it’s changed you. You’re not the same person you were when you started working there, Kel. That place changed you, he changed you, and you just sat back and let it happen. But what you’ll never understand is that you didn’t just break my heart, you destroyed how I saw you, how I saw me, how I saw the world. Everything. You threw it all away for nothing. Nothing.”

  “Harry, you can’t punish me for not being who or what you wanted me to be. Things change, people evolve.”

  “Evolve? Evolve? Are you fucking serious?”

  “Neither of us are exactly the same people we were when we met. But I’m not some demon from Hell. I’m still me.”

  “No,” he said, “somewhere along the line you became someone else. And I still can’t stop. I still love you. What I never knew until now is that for all these years you’ve used that to your advantage.”

  “Harry—”

  “But has it ever occurred to you how much suffering that’s caused me?”

  Something moved across the windows, slipping from one to the next like a ghost.

  “This is ridiculous. You know I love you. You have to know that.”

  “Yes,” he said, watching as the phantom crept by the bay window, up along the ceiling, then down the walls in a wide shaft of light. “In your own way I know you love me. So why did you let someone like Searcy and some job—and I’m sorry Kel, but at the end of the day that’s all it fucking is—ruin you, ruin your life, ruin your family? Why would you grant him—it—so much power? It’s so deep, it’s so twisted and sick and dark you can’t even see how unhappy it’s made you, how miserable you really are, how riddled with guilt and regret.”

  Lights—headlights, it—someone’s turned onto the street.

  “If you love me then why are you doing this?” she asked. “It isn’t fair, I—”

  “I want it all back.”

  “Harry, listen to me. Nothing is lost.”

  The light faded as darkness returned to the corners and ceiling.

  “The whole world’s lost.”

  “No it isn’t. It doesn’t have to be.”

  “Goodbye, Kel.”

  Outside, no sign of the others. They had retreated, returned to shadow.

  “Don’t you mean goodnight?”

  But across the street was a car that hadn’t been there before.

  “Something’s happening. I don’t know what it is yet but…there’s something here, something evil. It’s showing me things, frightening things. And you’re just one more part of what’s happening tonight, one more piece of the puzzle. I know that now.”

  A familiar car.

  “I’ve tried to hate you,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “This is crazy, what—why are you doing this?”

  For the briefest moment Harry saw Kelly as he’d always imagined her, as he’d always believed she truly was. And then it—she—was gone. “Goodnight, my love. Sleep tight.”

  “Harry wait—”

  He disconnected and dropped the phone. It rolled along the carpet and came to rest a few feet away. The chill running through his body worsened.

  So cold, he thought. Like the dead.

  Harry rubbed the tears from his eyes and the car across the street came into clearer focus.

  Rose was home. She’d just pulled into her driveway.

  10

  A circle of light pierced the darkness.

  The lantern fixture over Rose’s front door had come to life the moment the motion sensor detected her movement in the driveway. Dressed casually in jeans and a raincoat, she left her car and walked around to the rear of the vehicle, looking remarkably refreshed and alert despite the late hour. After popping the trunk she leaned inside and appeared to either rummage around or attend to something inside.

  She’s stumbling right into the middle of a hornet’s nest and has no idea. I’ve got to get her off the street.

  Harry grabbed the bat, then hurried back to the window. Rose was still leaned over into the trunk. He looked to the house, no one on the roof. Normally he’d have been able to see the adjacent section of road but the exploded streetlight left the surrounding area submerged in darkness. He had to risk it.

  But they could be anywhere...

  As he returned his attention to Rose he saw something above her shift, a subtle movement along the roofline. Heart racing, he went to the door and yanked it open. Night spilled in, bringing a soft but chilly breeze along with it. Harry’s lungs burned as his
eyes darted back and forth, anxiously searching the darkness for any signs of the shadow people.

  The cul-de-sac was quiet and now Rose’s roof appeared clear, empty.

  He stepped outside tentatively, a stranger on foreign ground, and looked around. Satisfied the others had retreated to shadow, he moved rapidly as his weary legs would carry him down the driveway, breathing in a steady rhythm and trying not to cough. “Rose!” he said in what came out like a loud stage whisper.

  She looked back over her shoulder. “Harry?”

  He’d made it to the street. “I need to talk to you.”

  “What are you doing up so late?” she asked, pulling her head from the trunk. “Is everything all right?”

  “There’s something happening.” He crossed onto her property and made his way up the short section of driveway, looking behind him, then up and down the cul-de-sac and finally beyond her to the roof. “We can’t stay out here. You have to come with me, OK? Don’t question me, just do it and I’ll explain—”

  “What’s the matter?” As she got a better look at him, Rose stepped back, closer to her car. Hands held down in front of her, fingers nervously interlocked, she glanced at the baseball bat and swallowed so hard it was audible.

  Realizing he’d frightened her, Harry stopped a few feet from her car. Rose’s house stood before them, the eave of the roof cutting the black sky. Overhead, the moon watched. Silent…still…lifeless…“We need to get inside,” he told her. “Right now, we have to do it right now.”

  Hazel eyes blinked nervously behind eyeglasses. “What’s with the bat?”

  “Please, Rose, don’t ask any questions, just do as I say. We have to go.”

  “Go?” A rush of breath left her laced with confused laughter. “Go where?”

  “It’s not safe out here.” Harry looked around, frantically attempting to cover as much ground as he could in every direction. They might attack from anywhere, at any moment. “The police were here twice today.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “We can’t stay out in the open,” he said, reaching for her. “You need to come back to the house with me and I’ll explain everything.”

  Rose leaned back, farther away from him and his outstretched hand. “What are you doing? Where’s Kelly?”