Who Loves Her?
Page 19
Mom left with Uncle Lars.
I slept much better after eating Mom’s casserole and basically had no energy to cry. My dreams were filled with flashing sirens and screams, but it was better than the night before.
I woke up with the nagging thing about Harris and the car from my accident. Then I decided to re-watch the security tapes and wrote down some numbers from the plates of Mr. and Mrs. Lemon. I was pretty sure there was nothing, but I was also pretty sure the creepy voice in the wind was going to call, so I thought I would check it all out.
“Schelcting Motors, how can I help you?”
“Is Harris there?”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Susan…Susan from the…”
“Oh, yes! Let me check and see if he’s in.”
“Susan! How have you been! Need a new car?”
“Um…in a bit. I’m still waiting for a settlement. I have kind of an odd question.”
“Well, odd questions are my specialty. Shoot.”
“Do you still have that car that belonged to the woman from our accident?”
“Oh, that got impounded quite a long time ago. Sorry, about that. I remember it was a real heap when they drug it here.”
“Do you by chance still have the plate number, or make and model?”
“Give me a second. Yep. White ninety-six Monte Carlo with personalized plates.”
“The plate?”
“Yep. It was HYPNTIZ”
“Do they let people keep personalized plates on new cars?”
“Well that all depends. Sometimes, if it happens to be someone in the family. Or if the same person had a totaled car. They might let them transfer it over.” My blood started to boil.
“Thanks, Harris.” I called the sheriff’s office.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Sheriff!” Susan spoke calmly, but her heart was racing.
“This is Susan down at the Skylark. Uhm yessir, I am fine, and you?” she felt her anger spike at the trying niceties the sheriff was throwing about. She had something important to say, and as she remembered she felt fear well up inside of her.
Speaking with forced calm she continued, “Well I was looking back through the security tapes and we had a guest here last night.”
“Well Susan,” he said, “isn’t that your business? I would hope you had a guest every night.” Dammit! What was wrong with this guy! Still feigning a matter-of-fact style, she continued.
“Uhm, yessir, of course, but this guy was different. Well actually it was the car. The car was uhm…” Susan’s voice trailed off as she suddenly realized how ridiculous it all sounded. How long had Anna and Bob been dead? What she was suspecting would have been impossible-or was it?”
‘Sheriff, the truth is I watched our security tapes closely last night. There was a man last night. He…well it…the car…I mean…the car arrived right after all of you got here to ask us questions. I was in such a daze, I just didn’t think about telling you.”
“Well that’s fine, Susan, but what do you want to tell me?”
“Well, the people who stopped here had a personalized license plate. I mean I didn’t really notice, but then after you all left I just kind of freaked out.”
“Well it’s a stretch, but you can give it to me and we can add it into the possibilities.”
“Well sheriff, that’s just about it, sir. The car had the exact same plate as the one that ran my husband and I off the road.” After everyone left, I rode down there and was in shock that it happened exactly where we crashed. I just feel so weird, and it seems so important so I called to verify, and I was right!”
“How do you know that? What’s the number?”
“HYPNTIZ. I know it because I had to live it over and over again at the trial and with the life insurance company. I saw the original police reports. Didn’t you guys write it down?”
“Well that’s all very interesting, Susan. We’ll take down the information and see where it goes. Thank you very much.”
“Wait! Please, please don’t hang up. I am telling you the truth sir. You’ve got to believe me!”
“Thanks for your time, miss. We’ll let you know what we find out.” Susan heard a click and was furious that the cops would not take her unusual information seriously. Then she tried and tried to remember the other thing the voice in the wind told her. “Room Twelve.” In all the commotion, Susan had not checked in on Room Twelve. Susan stood frozen in place. Her mind grappling with all the choices that lay before her. She could go into Room Twelve to have a look for herself. Who says you have to rely on the police or Sheriff’s department to investigate strange coincidences? Surely, they had to have ditched something there in their room. Maybe, they had left some kind of clue. In fact, it was almost a certainty that an overnight stay in a motel would yield some fringe clues left behind. Perhaps she should go to the Sheriff’s Department and demand action and go over the heads of the deputies that had taken her statement. Susan’s nerves were ragged when the phone rang. Just as she was expecting it….she heard the now familiar eerie sound…It was the wind.
“Susan…” the wind was blowing, the soft tone of Anna’s voice barely discernible but absolutely there.
“I believe, you Anna…I believe you!”
Suddenly, the sensation of the surreal wind and her sister’s voice was gone. Replaced by a new surreal sense of understanding and an urgent drive to action.
“I’m going to check Room Twelve, Anna. I am coming!” Her voice was urgent and breathless as she reached frantically for the key. She heard the phone slamming to the floor behind her and Anna’s shrieking voice in the chaos.
“No! Susan! Don’t!”
It was too late. Susan was running toward Room Twelve; her heart pounding loudly in her ears. She was sure it was all going to be all right. She was going to see Anna. She was going to see Bob. This terrible nightmare would be over, finally!
The keys clicked against one another as her shaking hands fumbled with the old lock. Suddenly, she threw open the door to Room Twelve and there on the bed sitting calmly, was the woman. Charles’ throat had been cut. Susan’s hot breath was burning as she breathed hard, trying to maintain her grip on reality as the impossibility of the setting unfolded before her. Somewhere her mind was screaming: “No! This is not real,” and yet here it was as close as if she could touch it.
“Nice to see you, Susan. So glad you can join us. You didn’t even look up and notice that it was I who checked out of the room yesterday. Charles wasn’t driving. This car has served me so well over the years.” And with that, Susan met the eyes of Anna’s and Bob’s ghost. The husband’s wife was crying in the corner. They had tears in their eyes and shook their heads. There was a reason Uncle Lars never rented this room to anyone. Susan had forgotten the rule.
***
Susan gasped awake as if she had been drowning in a pool. Her heart was pounding. She looked everywhere. She had drooled all over the keyboard and saw a blinking cursor after…
“That’s a tough one sweetheart,” Bob slightly laughed at her question.
“I suppose I’ll think and answer you later. Wait until you see the live musical band that we have arranged for the wedding. Funny group. And guess where we are headed to after the church? To my oldest and best friend’s farmhouse. We got a great swimming pool and a view. He turned it into a bed and breakfast and we’re his first guests. On the house!”
Then large footsteps came around the corner and gave her a hug. Bob said, “You need to stop writing so much Susan! That stuff is gonna give you nightmares. You comin’ to bed?”
I was torn between the comfort of the common feel of the room and the impossibilities of the horror in my mind. I could hear Bob’s heavy steps receding down the hall, the sounds of his steps comforting as he headed downstairs for one last check before bed. I looked at the screen. For some reason the blinking cursor caught my attention and refused to release me. I could still hear Dr. Freudette’s words, “Write
Susan! About anything at all.” A nervous giggle escaped from some observer deep inside of me. My mind reeled through the various worlds suddenly alive inside my mind. Death, love, fear, happiness, and the macabre were all there, but which was real? My computer was real, the soft hiss of the fan reassuring me that it existed in reality and not in my imagination, but the low hum of the highway outside Uncle Lars motel was also real. The strange sense of realization that was confronting me now felt eerily connected to the vicious betrayal by Bob, Harris, and their friends. Would Bob kill me? Was he my savior? And what about Anna?
Dr. Freudette was real, Susan was certain of that fact. Susan’s mind was suddenly alive digging furiously to identify and isolate that which was real in consideration of the vivid details of her imagination. Somewhere, there in her story was the truth. Somehow she had written the answers to her personal train-wreck stories. Someone would be able to read her stories and know the truth. Someone. Dr. Freudette had said that writing would provide acceptance and understanding, but now, all I feel is emptiness, confusion, and even fear. Curiously calm, I tried to imagine what was real and what was imagined. Suddenly, a voice, a long-familiar voice, whispered into my ear: “Susan we have to keep going! You cannot stop now; it is your wedding day! Hurry!” The familiar sound of Nina’s laughter faded as I turned to greet an empty room.
The End
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One