When the time-stamp registered two thirty-five a.m., something happened. Edgington snorted awake. In a voice thinner than usual, he called out, “Who’s there?” Sitting up straight, he chattered nervously to himself, low and nonsensical. Even though the green filter made it hard to define images, Derek saw a fleeting shadow pass across the back stone wall. As he turned up the volume, he noticed his hand trembling then tucked it under his thigh to steady it. Over the loud hissing of the tape, Derek heard another voice. A quiet, female voice. Edgington’s tone dropped, nothing more than incessant babbling, an almost rhythmic chant like a mantra. Complete gibberish. A crack sounded. Edgington jumped to his feet, the chair banging to the floor with a clang. He passed in front of the camera, a blurry trail of flesh and muddy cloth, before his mad dash up the stairs.
A minute later, another shadow appeared, wavering in front of the camera. A mass, not human, a shape he couldn’t identify, changing, growing, stretching. Coming toward the camera. Something else had been down there. Proof positive.
He watched the tape over and over again until Toni came home. But he kept quiet about it.
Chapter Eight
Derek pulled into the hospital parking lot. Kevin Wilshire stood by a tree close to the street, smoking a cigarette.
“Hi, Kevin. How’s your mom doing?” Kevin looked like he hadn’t slept, eyes glassy and bags tapering his eyes.
“Hey, Derek. Seems like she took a turn for the worse last night.”
“Sorry to hear that. Physically, or…” Derek didn’t finish his sentence. Several days ago, he was worried about Katherine’s state of mind. He knew better now. Katherine was the only one who has a clue about what was going on.
“She’s still saying things that don’t make sense. She’s weak, sleeping more. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her.” He studied the cigarette shaking between his fingers. “Sorry ‘bout this. Bad habit, only do it when I get stressed out.”
“Believe me, I know the feeling.” Tempted to bum one, Derek fought the urge. No sense in everything from his past coming back to haunt him. “Is she awake now?”
“She wasn’t a bit ago. She’s asleep most of the time. When she’s awake, she—” Instead of finishing his sentence, he took a long drag on his cigarette.
Derek clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, Kevin. Really. Just…don’t give up. We know Katherine’s a scrappy gal.”
Kevin smiled, but there was no mirth behind it. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Can I see if she’s awake? Or do the doctors have her corralled off?”
“You can try. But I don’t know. It’s almost like age is finally catching up to her.”
“Guess it happens to all of us eventually.”
“I guess.” The two men stood in the morning sunlight, pondering how unjust aging can be.
* * * *
Derek rapped on the door. Katherine lay quiet, eyes closed. He looked around to see if a nurse was in hiding, waiting to pounce on him. There wasn’t, so he went in.
Her chest rose slowly, her breathing even. He moved a chair closer and sat.
“Katherine, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I believe you. Everything you said. I just wanted to let you know that. I hope you get better soon.” He stood to leave, stopped when he heard movement from the bed.
“Derek?” Her voice registered barely above a whisper. “Derek?”
“Hi, Katherine. It’s me.” He grabbed her hand, her skin cold to the touch. Creases split across her forehead, rippling down to her brow.
“She came for me last night.”
Derek sat down and leaned in. “Who? Katherine? Tell me who.”
“That woman.” She lifted her hand as if fighting gravity and pointed toward a cup next to her bed.
“You want ice chips?” She nodded, swallowing hard. Derek gently tilted the cup into her mouth, letting a chip slide through her lips. “Better?”
“Yes.”
“What woman are you talking about?”
“That new woman…across the street.”
“Huh. Was she…visiting?” But Derek knew better. Kendra never greeted them; no way she would take time to visit Katherine. Why the visit?
“No! She came for me, Derek! It’s too late for me. She has me now.”
“Katherine, don’t say that.” Derek struggled to keep his panic from matching hers. An epic battle, but he didn’t want to upset her any more.
“She was here when I woke up, standing over me. She just smiled. Didn’t say a word. I screamed bloody murder. The nurses came in, but she’d already gone.” She tried to sit up but fell back with a minor flumph, a feather floating down, joining its kindred. “I’ve been sick since. You’ve got to believe me, Derek.”
“I do believe you, Katherine. But what did she do to you?”
“I don’t know. But they’re mixed up in somethin’ awful. Cursed me or something…”
Before last night, Derek would’ve scoffed. Not now. “What kind of curse? Why would she want to harm you?”
She took in a deep breath and moaned. “They want my house. Like I’ve been telling you!”
“Katherine—”
“Not just mine. They want yours, too. And you’d best listen to me! For your own good. If you don’t believe me, go look in my bedroom. Under my pillow. That’s what sent me outside the other day.”
“Calm down, Katherine. Shhh. It’s okay, now.”
“It’s not okay. All the nurses think I’ve lost my mind! My son does, too. But I know what I know.”
The same philosophy Derek had taken. Sometimes the mind plays tricks. But he and Katherine were the victims of something else, something unexplainable. “Trust me, Katherine, I believe every word you’re saying. I don’t understand any of it, but I believe you.”
Liquid pebbles rolled down her cheeks, starting an avalanche of tears. “Thank God someone does. But…why do you believe me now?”
Derek stumbled over his words before deciding to tell her the truth. “Because…last night there was something in my basement.” He told her the story of Edgington’s investigation.
“Oh. Oh, my. Things are happening now.”
“What things?”
A wheeze rattled from her chest, a punctured accordion. Gasping for breath, she licked her lips. “I don’t have much longer.”
“Katherine, you’ll be kicking your heels up again before—”
“I know it’s my time soon. Those damned neighbors…damned neighbors…” Her heavy eyelids closed. Derek shot to his feet, hand hovering over the nurse button. Relieved, he saw her chest rising, her breathing forced but even.
On his way out, he asked a nurse if she would look in on the patient in room 422 through the day. If Katherine said she didn’t have much longer to live, Derek didn’t doubt her.
* * * *
Activity across the street drew Derek’s attention as he pulled into the driveway. He hurried inside, heading straight for the window, the stakeout location he’d been spending a lot of time at lately.
Kendra and Sunny were embroiled in a heated argument. More like a one-sided rant. Sunny yelled, thrashing her arms about while Kendra remained silent. Sunny finished, hung her head and shambled back to her house. At first, Derek thought, You go, Sunny! But then his temporary amusement became shrouded in doubt. Kendra would never let someone harangue her like that. Of course, he’d only heard her speak one word, but it’s just not in her bitchy character to roll over and accept a tongue-lashing.
Kendra craned her head across the neighborhood, a predator seeking its prey. Her eyes stopped on Derek. Derek jumped back from the window, afraid she’d seen him behind the blinds. Daring another glimpse, he saw her smiling. That damn, evil, queasy smile that cloaked malevolence. Smiling at him. Her hands inched down her torso, fell to her stomach. She pulled up the front of her hoodie and rubbed her hands over her shirt, massaging a previously unseen protuberance. Is she pregnant? He quickly closed the blinds, unsure as to why he suddenly
felt nauseous.
A sour wail erupted from the backyard, a brassy sound. Derek shooed Patch away from the back door and stepped out onto the deck. The sound repeated again, hoarser this time. He breathed out and relaxed. This particular haunting echoed from an unknown neighbor’s deck. Someone’s son bleated on a trumpet, the acoustic torture indicative of his amateur status.
Over the noise, Derek distinguished a wail of a different sort. Crying. He spotted Sunny sitting on her back steps, head sunken between her knees, her hand clamped over her mouth.
No doubt Kendra did something to upset her.
“Sunny?” He kept his voice tentative and low. An uncomfortable situation, he didn’t know how far to cross the line. Unschooled in the acceptable neighborliness arena, Derek forged ahead and entered her gate anyway. Sunny hadn’t noticed him yet.
“Hey, um, Sunny? Hi. Everything okay?” He stopped several feet in front of her as if afraid to step into her grieving space for fear it might be contagious.
She lifted her head and stared at him with swollen eyes.
“Is anything wrong? Can I help?”
“No. Just go away. Please!”
“Well…if there’s anything—anything—I can do, just—”
“Please, just leave me alone!”
“Sunny, did Kendra do anything to—”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, God. Just go. Please… Please…don’t let her see us talking.”
Derek opened his mouth then decided to heed Sunny’s advice. Trying to talk to someone in that state of mind is generally a wasted effort. Still, sometimes he just couldn’t help himself. “Just know I’m here for you if you need to talk,” he mumbled as he walked out the gate.
Still standing in front of her house, Kendra continued rubbing her stomach at a feverish pace, her hands whirling round and round. Derek stopped and met her gaze. Her grin finally broke as the tip of her tongue flit out, licking her lips. Like a snake.
* * * *
At one thirty that morning, Derek sat on the back deck, fully awake. Sleep was out of the question. Lately, insomnia recurred more frequently. He couldn’t remember the last full night of sleep he’d had.
He sighed and contemplated the pack of cigarettes in his hand. The first pack he’d bought in a long time. Toni had insisted he quit, and he had. On rare occasions when stress got the better of him, he would relapse into his bad habit. He tried to justify cigarettes as a crutch during trying times, but intellectually he knew that ultimately they would hasten the end of times. Didn’t matter right now. That morning he had gone straight to the closest gas station and bought a pack.
He slid a cigarette between his lips. It felt like welcoming back an old friend, one your mother warned you to stay away from. Falling in with the wrong crowd, his mother would say.
Lighting it, he inhaled deeply. He held it for a few seconds and blew a plume of smoke into the night. Seconds later, the nicotine invaded his bloodstream. His face tingled, not unpleasantly. Numbness crawled through him. He shut his eyes and welcomed the momentary respite from his daily worries. And fears.
The dizziness soon passed. He took another drag and surveyed the activities of the neighbors on the rear side of his house.
Derek didn’t quite understand the rules regarding rear side neighbors, but the protocol apparently differed from the front side. Maybe it’s simply easier to hide behind chain link and privacy fences. Or perhaps two backyards put a more comfortable distance between them, rendering it easier to ignore neighbors. But it seemed through the years, none of these neighbors ever made an effort to get to know one another. Not really. Waves were tossed on occasion, maybe even a shouted quick comment about how dry the summer had been, but names were never exchanged.
Yet Derek knew these people. Call him an artist with an eye for detail or an avid student of human nature, or whatever. But he knew them. He familiarized himself with their schedules, their actions, the music they listened to. He may not have known their names, but he had christened them with nicknames.
To his right, Captain All-American and family were snug in their beds, anticipating a new day of capitalism and high school. Clean cut to the point of absurdity, the good Captain even mowed his yard and barbequed in polo shirts. Derek had overheard a few snippets of Bob and the Captain’s over-the-fence conversations in the past, primarily dealing with new grills. About once a month, the Captain cut loose. Dragging his speakers out to the back deck, he enjoyed blasting out classic rock tunes. But at eleven p.m., lights were always out, all semblance of wild hairs carefully slicked back into place.
The Captain didn’t know he had a secret rebel in his household. A couple years ago while Derek was sneaking a smoke, he spied the Captain’s daughter, pressed up against the back of the house. Smoking. Feeling a secret alliance with her, Derek waved. She quickly turned toward her house, a young version in training of the bitch across the street.
Next to Captain All-Amercian lived Night Nurse. Apparently awake, one lonely small light leaked out from her guarded fort. There were never any lights on in her house until the wee hours of the morning, and they would stay on until daybreak. Probably because she slept through the day, like a vampire. Derek had only seen her a few times. Rarely, when she would venture into her backyard, she always waved, but she appeared to live a solitary life. Even her dog remained remarkably quiet, sitting vigilant at the back door, patiently waiting for his mistress to rise. Derek had christened the dog Renfield.
Flanking Night Nurse resided Party Girl (although she didn’t really reside there). Never home, Party Girl kept every light in her home blazing all night long. Derek imagined she kept the lights burning as a nice welcoming beacon when she stumbled home from the bars, calling to her in case she forgot which house was hers. Being green-minded didn’t seem to be too high on Party Girl’s priority list. She seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of cash; her electricity bills had to be astronomical. On the rare occasion Party Girl stayed home, she brought the party to her house. Music blared, and drunken voices shouted from her second-level deck. Generally it continued deep into the night. He’d met her several times, and unlike his new neighbors, she was very friendly, befitting her Party Girl status. Tonight the lights were on, but the party rocked elsewhere.
Derek felt the crisp snap of the fall air moving in, but with no wind to carry it, the temperature remained pleasant. Flicking the cherry off the cigarette, he watched it fly through the air, spinning down to the ground. Pocketing the butt, he sat, taking the night in. And listened.
After the outdoor noises of summer, he marveled at how quiet this time of year could be. And this year, it seemed to come early. The nonstop buzzing of the cicadas, usually the last call of summer, had died several weeks ago. Only occasional hoots from owls and squawks from a stubborn night bird not yet ready to migrate remained. Even the incessant chirping of—well, Derek didn’t know what exactly it was, but it sounded like a fire detector with the battery running low—had flown the coop. An unusually quiet night, a church without musical accompaniment, hushed coughs or stifled whispers. And he was the lone parishioner of his silent church.
A faint scratching sounded from the left of the deck. Tree limbs brushing against the house? No, with no wind, they wouldn’t move. The noise stopped, then started again several minutes later. A scritch-scritch-scratching. A claw dragging over something solid. Derek fired up his lighter. He cupped the flame with one hand and stepped off the deck into the yard. The noise appeared to originate by the basement window.
Scritch-scritch-scratch.
Derek knelt before the well-window. He dug a hand in and scooped leaves out. The sound stopped as abruptly as it’d begun. Derek held the flame toward the window and looked in. Impossible to see through the thick layers of dirt and cobwebs, he swiped the back of his hand across the window, still saw nothing.
Probably a bat or some other nocturnal animal scratching at the outside of the window. His approach, coupled with the lighter, had sent it away. Stupid of hi
m, really, to even have dropped his hand in the well. Satisfied with his explanation, he wiped the dirt from his hand onto his jeans. His knees cracked as he stood.
Scritch-scratch.
Derek jumped. The sound had migrated to the walk-out basement door. Navigating the narrow cement steps in the daylight’s hazardous enough. At night it proved to be nearly life-threatening. One hand lighting the way, the other running across the stone foundation for support, Derek descended toward the sound.
Scratch-scratch-scratch.
He stepped into six inches of sodden leaves accumulated around the drain. Something rustled against his foot. He yanked his foot out, releasing the lighter’s button as a knee-jerk response. Worms. It had always been a gathering place for large, pale, grotesque worms. But the pressure on his foot came from something much larger than a worm.
Scritch-scritch-scratch.
He stumbled backward, falling onto the steps. Scrambling to his feet, he flicked the lighter on. Again the noise stopped. As he held the light to the dust-covered door window, a face materialized. He yelped; then realized it was his own reflection, orange and black from the lighter’s flickering flame.
The chicken-wire over the window curled around the edges, but the rusty staples still kept it in place. Derek always wondered why the previous occupant had put it over the window. To keep things out? Or to keep something in?
Quivers of fear flowed down his spine. Nothing here but his imagination. He released the lighter’s button and waited in darkness for the scratching to recommence.
Reassuring silence.
With a soft chuckle, he realized how ludicrous his actions were. Here he is, chasing some real or imagined critter and letting his imagination chase him in the middle of the night. He turned, one hand braced against the stone wall, bed sounding like a winning option.
Neighborhood Watch Page 8