Dennis laughed. “I wish she could hear you say that. She used to argue with me sometimes about friends like you.”
“Yeah, I know. Bad influences. I still am, huh?”
“Think the Bears are going to win?” Dennis asked.
“I don’t know how you’ve done it.”
Dennis studied the ruddy-faced man across from him. “What do you mean?”
“How you’ve managed to stay—to still be you—after she died. I mean, I think I fell apart more than you did when Lucy died.”
Dennis nodded. He had heard it before. “I couldn’t afford to fall apart,” he said. “Not in front of Audrey. She was going through enough pain.”
“Audrey’s a great kid. She has Lucy’s genes.”
“Thanks. But she’s got a lot of mine too.”
“You know, man—everybody needs to grieve.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dennis said. “But everybody grieves in different ways.”
“So what’s your way?”
“Trying to control as much as possible.”
“Control’s an illusion, man.”
Dennis forced a smile.
2.
“Can you make it to your apartment?”
Hank cursed. “I only let you drive me home so you could sleep well. Didn’t want to give you any nightmares.” Hank stressed that last word, something he joked a lot about since Dennis specialized in writing books devoted to giving others the very same thing.
“What a game, huh?”
“Ninety-five yards in less than two minutes,” Hank said.
“And they say miracles don’t happen.”
“At least not to the Bears. But it happened today.”
“Want me to pick you up tomorrow?”
“Nah. I’m calling in to work. I’ll get Stan to drop me off to pick up the car tomorrow.”
It was close to eleven. They had spent the entire day watching football. First the Bears game, then the Packers (cheering on Philadelphia to win but to no avail), then the Sunday night game which wasn’t that interesting but provided background to make jokes and continue to eat bad food and, at least for Hank, continue to drink beer.
The big guy usually was pretty good to go after a game, but today he was completely soused. He talked as though he were in slow motion. It took him a few minutes to find the door handle before he added, “I’m fine. No problem.”
“Call me when you wake up.”
Hank laughed, standing on the curb. He didn’t seem to mind that it was drizzling. Dennis faced him through the open window. “Sorry about Julie,” he said.
Hank held up his middle finger in response to what he thought about all of that. But that was a twelve-year-old’s response. Dennis knew his friend still loved this woman who had broken his heart but had nowhere to go with his wound.
Nowhere to go with his grief.
Dennis understood that all too well.
Waiting at a light right before the bridge, Dennis thought about Hank. They’d been friends since their college days at Northern University. He only had a couple other friends from his younger days, and he only saw them when he had tickets to play-off games. He was struck by how you might choose your friends, but you didn’t choose who would become part of the fabric of your life. Most of the time the unlikeliest people stuck around. When he first met Hank, they hardly had anything in common. Little did he know at the time that Hank would become his closest friend during the course of the next three decades.
He drove along Butterfield Road as it wound past the police station down toward the Fox River and over the bridge, the drizzle becoming heavier. He flicked on his windshield wipers as his eyes caught something strange ahead.
At the edge of the sidewalk lining the concrete bridge, a small bike leaned against the short wall. And there, in the rain, was a girl. He noticed the blonde hair. The pigtails.
She stood on the railing overlooking the well-lit northern side of the bridge, the dam fifty yards away.
Just as Dennis slowed his car down, staring through the blurry glass, not believing what he was seeing, he saw the little girl step off the railing and drop.
What the—
He jammed on the brakes and jumped out, running around his vehicle and vaulting over the stone barricade between the road and the sidewalk.
Wind blew the rain sideways as he stood at the railing, disoriented and dizzy. For a second he thought about diving in and saving her. But he second-guessed what he saw.
The railing was lower than he remembered. A car passed his waiting SUV, slowing down to see what was going on. Spotlights beamed down on the river below, facing the dam and its steady stream of pouring water. The dam itself wasn’t too high, and the water levels seemed fairly low. He could see the moving water below him, the eerie glow of the lights on the rising foam.
“Hey—you okay?” he called out.
He heard a howling sound, a high, piercing cry. Not a cry of anguish, but one of fear.
“You down there?” he called out, unable to see anyone. “Hello? Hello?”
A car honked its horn behind him. He turned around and waved it on, his forehead wet, his hair damp. Dennis watched the car move past, then sprinted toward the other end of the bridge. Dark trees guarded each side of the river, shadowed and sinister.
“Hello? Anybody down there? Hello?”
Another car stopped behind him, waiting, then passing.
Dennis peered over the edge and again felt a dizzy foreboding. The darkness seemed to call him, enticing him, urging him to jump.
He shook his head to get out of the slight trance.
The water looked calmer on this side, but he could barely make out the surface.
Someone on the bridge blared their horn to make him move his car. Dennis jumped back over the median and climbed into his SUV, driving ahead to the small parking lot on the darkened south side of the bridge.
He rushed back out of his car and down a small incline to the edge of the water. A biking trail wound near the river, under the bridge. The sound of trickling water falling off the bridge and spattering onto the sidewalk below caught Dennis’s attention.
Maybe she got out of the water. Maybe she’s under the bridge.
Dennis called out a few more times, scanning the water. He walked closer to the bridge that loomed above him. He squinted in the misty rain as he edged closer, entering the bridge’s shadow, still unable to make out anything.
“Is anybody there?” he called, wondering if he had really seen the girl jump into the river at all.
He paused partway under the bridge. He heard something. A heavy, distorted, wet sound. Not from rain or from the river, but from something else.
Breathing.
Someone was breathing, the haggard, sick panting of someone not well.
“Who’s there?” Dennis asked.
The sucking sounds continued as he edged farther under the bridge. He stopped for a second, his eyes watering. There was stench unlike anything he had ever smelled. Something rotten. Something dead.
I’m smelling death. That’s what I’m smelling. That’s what I’m hearing. No…
Two flames glowed at him.
Demon eyes.
He turned and sprinted out, never looking back. He ran up the hill, almost slipping on the muddy bank as he neared his car. He tore into the car and revved the engine, locking the doors and putting it in reverse even before catching his breath.
Those eyes from the pit of hell. Red glowing embers pulsing with rage and fear.
I didn’t see anything. It’s just my imagination.
As he pulled back onto the road, he looked back at the bridge where the bike had been—where the girl had stood on the edge and dropped—but saw nothing. He thought about calling the police. But what could he say? The bike was missing and the girl was gone and whatever was below the bridge…
“No,” he spoke out loud to get some sense of balance and reality. “No way.”
What could he tell the poli
ce? After a day of watching football and drinking and taking his drunk buddy home, he saw a girl hop over the side of the bridge and jump into the Fox River? They’d probably assume he was drunk as well.
Am I?
He took a deep breath and knew he’d seen something. He hadn’t made this up.
The images came back to his mind. The girl was one thing. But what had he seen under the bridge? What had he imagined?
“I’m just tired,” he said out loud, speaking for the sake of his sanity.
A drop of sweat lined his cheek. He opened his window and let the breeze cool him. As he replayed the events that had just happened, Dennis couldn’t shake the feeling that they had happened once before.
It took just a few minutes to realize the truth.
He hadn’t experienced the events that had just happened.
He had written them.
2005
The big guy staggered out of the car, looking up and down the street. This was surprising. Why would this disheveled, bulky, anxious man in his thirties think he was being watched?
Cillian wondered what secrets the man held.
The guy wore khaki pants—he always wore khakis. They looked like they never got washed. They were loose except around his gut, which stuck out past his button-down, un-tucked, short-sleeved shirt. His cap and black glasses made him look ordinary, forgettable. He walked with a slight limp in his right leg.
Cillian watched the big man go inside and found it interesting that a guy living in Geneva would drive twenty minutes to this hole-in-the-wall bar. There were plenty of others between where he lived and here.
The tavern smelled like peppers. Peppers and body odor. The air was thick with smoke, the lights dim, a television in the corner playing an old movie. The bartender appeared bored as he took a long drag from his cigarette.
Cillian ordered a beer, then sat a couple stools down from the big guy. On his second beer, he tried to strike up a conversation. The man was pounding Budweiser. He noticed the big guy’s right hand shook whenever he picked up the bottle.
“You smoke?” Cillian asked.
The guy looked at him, his flat eyes curious. He nodded but didn’t offer him a cigarette.
“Here,” the bartender said, handing him a pack and giving him a glance that seemed to say, “Don’t mess with that guy.”
Cillian took a drag from his cigarette, doing it for show. He sometimes smoked but didn’t really like it. The beer tasted worse with the Marlboro in his mouth. He wasn’t here for this anyway. He was here to make a connection with this stranger.
A stranger who provided him a link to Dennis Shore.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
The big guy stared at him intently for a long minute. “Why?”
Cillian shrugged, inhaling the cigarette for effect. “Just a friendly conversation.”
The guy looked ahead, picking up his beer and draining it, hiding his shaking hand.
It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week or more, his blond and gray beard speckled all over his pudgy face. Oily white hair curled up from the back of his cap. Bumps dotted his neck around his patches of whiskers.
Cillian finished another beer and waited to order another. When he did, he told the bartender to give the big guy one as well.
The guy looked at him again. The look had a dead quality about it—something missing, something blank. The eyes were cold, dispassionate, the glance appearing slightly off, as though he was thinking of something else.
The guy leaned in toward him. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just bored, chatting.”
“Never seen you here.”
“That’s ’cause I followed you.”
The big guy turned even more white than he already was. “You what?”
“I followed you here. From your house in Geneva.”
“That’s not my house.”
“I’ve seen you there quite a few times.”
“And why were you looking?”
“’Cause I’ve been spying on your neighbor.”
“What neighbor?”
“Ever hear of Dennis Shore?”
“No.”
Cillian told him the truth, all of it. He talked about being a Dennis Shore fan, then being disappointed by the silence and the treatment. The big guy continued to stare, looking ready to pounce on him if he moved.
“So why do you care what he does?” the big guy asked.
“I’m just curious,” Cillian said. “I’d like to know how he writes, how he gets his inspiration.”
“Inspiration for what?”
“Writing his horror novels.”
“I don’t like curious people.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Cillian paused. “Speak with your neighbors much?”
The big guy shook his head and lifted the bottle to his mouth.
“If you don’t live there, you certainly visit quite a bit.”
“My parents live there.”
“And you?”
“What do you want?”
“I want to watch,” Cillian said. “I want to know.”
“Know what?” The big guy coughed, clearing his throat, his eyes watering.
“I’ve seen some interesting things,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Just—interesting things.”
The big guy licked his lips and lifted his beer. It shook. Sweat dotted the man’s forehead, just above the eyebrows and below his cap. “What things?”
“All I want is a chance to watch, to spy on your neighbor, to get close to him,” he said. “That’s all I’m interested in. I won’t bother anyone.”
The big guy looked at him for a long time, saying nothing. “So now—what sort of things are you interested in?”
The smile on the big guy’s lips made Cillian shudder.
The Blood-Smeared Note
1.
Dennis held his wife’s hand on that long drive back from the hospital. They rode in silence, the stereo off, the whisper of air slipping through the window cracks. He felt like he was in a daze, without anything to say, without anything left to feel. He needed to be strong for Lucy, but he wasn’t sure how. All he wanted was to take back the last few hours, to rewrite them with a happier ending. But he couldn’t.
Pulling into the driveway, the garage door whining open, Dennis stopped the car prematurely when he felt Lucy’s hand grip his and then heard her crying.
“Don’t—I don’t want Audrey to see me—not like this.”
“Okay,” he said, putting the car in park and wrapping her in his arms.
For several minutes, a small chunk of eternity, Lucy wept against him. It was impossible for him to remain strong and fearless. Tears brushed down his cheeks and fell against Lucy’s thick hair.
“I’m so sorry,” he told her over and over again.
When Lucy’s swollen red eyes glanced back at him, she seemed lost.
“I don’t know why. Why? Why would God let something like this happen? Why, when I prayed? Why, when it was so close? When we were so close? Why, Dennis? Why?”
But he didn’t have a clue. He had no answer. He only shook his head.
“Do you want to know the name I picked out for her? I wanted Abigail. Abby for short. Audrey and Abby. That would have fit, you know? Audrey would have liked that.”
“It’s a perfect name,” Dennis said.
“She lived eight months. Eight months. Why, Den? Why so short? Why couldn’t she at least have a chance? Why couldn’t she have been born?”
Lucy clung to him and continued to weep.
Dennis thought about holding his little baby girl in his hands after the premature delivery. He would never forget her tiny hands, her little face, the strands of hair on her little head.
She would be part of him for the rest of his life.
Dennis remembered seeing the brilliant orange sunset when they finally climbed out of the car to go inside and tell Lucy’s parents
and their eight-year-old daughter the news. It haunted him with its beauty.
That was the day he decided there was no God. That there was nothing more than what he could feel and touch. There was nothing else in this world, not a single thing.
2.
On a quiet afternoon walk, Dennis couldn’t help thinking about Abby. Eleven years still felt like yesterday, the void in his heart still empty. As he walked along the trail lining the tranquil Fox River, Dennis knew that this life of his—the house and the books and the fame and fortune—had all started because of that momentous event.
With his first book already out at the time, his second finished and soon to be published, Dennis had found himself lost without a story to write. Every time he tried, nothing came.
And then he started to write about a couple that went through a miscarriage, whose lives fell apart after that. And what he thought was just going to be a drama took a left turn into horror as the couple began to be haunted by a young girl they assumed was the daughter they lost.
It was creepy and chilling and extremely cathartic. And even if it had never gotten published, Dennis had needed to write that book. The story became Breathe, which went on to sell several million copies.
I’d take back every single copy sold to still have her with us.
He thought of what happened the other night, the image of the girl jumping off the bridge. It had been a pivotal scene in Breathe, one of the first scenes where the protagonist started being haunted.
Dennis knew he wasn’t being haunted and there had been no girl on the bridge. It had been purely his imagination. That was all. His imagination and stress.
He passed a couple of joggers and nodded at them. If he got paid by the hour, Dennis would record his walks on his time cards. They were an invaluable part of the writing process. At least, they always had been before this bout of block seized his fingers and his soul. The strolls had always given him time to let ideas germinate. Sometimes all an author needed was time. A premise could turn into a character that turned into a scene. And scene after scene turned into a novel.
As if on cue, his cell phone vibrated. He glanced at the caller ID.
“Hi, Maureen,” Dennis said.
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