Ill at Ease

by Mark West

  Dave slowly approached the car, his legs trembling, feeling like they might give out at any moment. The wheezing Assistant Manager finally caught up with him as he reached his vehicle. He didn’t turn round but could see her reflected in the passenger window. She stopped a few paces behind and looked past him at the child’s seat. The security guard that had followed her was already returning to the store, shaking his head.

  “Does that look like a child to you?” Dave said, not turning to face her, his eyes locked on the occupant in the seat. The woman mumbled an apology, said that it was a misunderstanding and then she followed the guard back inside. Dave unlocked the car and opened the rear passenger door. He paused for a moment to look into the featureless face of his daughter’s rag doll before hurling it onto the vacant back seat.

  He stood there for some minutes looking at the small figure now sprawled over the back seat. He was still shaking, the skin on the back of his neck and scalp prickling.

  He’d had cause to look into the back of the car many times over the last week, but he had never seen the doll. He turned away and was about to shut the door when he saw the dirty smudges of numerous footprints on the back of the front passenger seat.

  “Here, you left this in the car,” he said, throwing the rag doll towards Katie.

  She made no attempt to catch it and watched as it landed at her feet in a crumpled heap. She nudged the doll with her foot.

  “I don’t like Dolly anymore,” she said and stepped away.

  “Why ever not?” asked Dave reaching down to retrieve the mass of twisted limbs on the floor. “I thought she was your favourite?”

  Katie shook her head. “She’s not my friend anymore.”

  “Really, what did she do?”

  “She got deaded.”

  “Don’t say things like that,” he said feeling a chill creep over him. “Now what’s gotten into her?”

  He’d directed this question at Debs who’d just appeared from the kitchen.

  “Best not to ask, she’s had one on her since she came home. I thought you said you’d pick up some wine?”

  “I forgot,” he said rather feebly. He wasn’t even going to attempt to explain what had just happened at the supermarket. “I’ll walk over to the off-licence now.”

  He picked up the doll and tidied her up. He looked into the expressionless face with only two small black button-eyes, no mouth or nose.

  “Looks as though you’re in everyone’s bad books today Dolly,” he said, before placing it on the nearest chair and heading back out.

  “It’s just a phase she’s going through; she’s fine,” he said, starting to undress.

  He’d had maybe one too many glasses of wine and was feeling a little groggy. It was a good job Debs had given him a nudge on the way up to bed, otherwise he’d have probably spent the night snoring on the sofa.

  “This death thing is becoming an obsession,” sighed Debs, noisily flicking over the page of a paperback.

  “Hardly, she’s just reached that age where she knows nothing lasts forever. I’m sure it’s completely normal.”

  “And she never shuts up about blood.”

  “Well, you were the one who wanted to send her to a Catholic school. If you want to find the cause for her interest in all things bloody and dead you don’t need to look any further than there.”

  “And there’s this thing with heads falling off.”

  “Well maybe it doesn’t quite explain the head thing.”

  “And ghosts.”

  “Ghosts,” he repeated the word to himself and parted the curtains just enough to see his car in the driveway below. “Oh bollocks!”

  “What is it?” Debs asked, for the first time looking up from her book.

  “There’s a light still on in the car. God knows how long that’s been on. It’ll drain the battery if I don’t turn it off.”

  He sighed, pulling his tee shirt back on and searching for his discarded slippers.

  “I’ll be back in a mo,” he said as he left the room.

  He stepped outside and instantly regretted not putting on something warmer as he felt the sting of the night air. A layer of frost had already settled over the two cars; the illuminated windows of the KIA made it look like some kind of novelty night-light. He walked past Deb’s car, jingling his keys nervously. His slippers slapped out a lazy rhythm on the paved driveway that sounded uncomfortably loud.

  Something moved within his car. It brought him to a sudden halt, even as he was reaching towards the door. A small figure seemed to be momentarily caught by the light as it moved from the driver’s seat and slipped into the back. As the only light-source came from directly above, no shadows were cast on the opaque glass. He remembered the hand he thought he saw at the window; this time he wasn’t mistaken, there was someone in the car.

  The way the figure had clambered between the two front seats reminded him of Katie’s game whenever she was kept waiting. She’d hop behind the wheel and pretend to be the driver, peering through the steering wheel while gamely trying to find the pedals with her feet until the sight of an approaching parent would send her scurrying into the back, denying she had ever left her seat.

  He shuffled closer. If someone were attempting to steal it, they would surely have fled the moment he opened the front door. Had he left the car unlocked? He’d certainly done that before. On one of those occasions an opportunistic thief had made off with all the CDs he kept in the glove compartment. Very slowly he slid his fingers under the handle. He tightened his grip, feeling the tension in the mechanism. Two days later he’d found a note slipped under the wiper upbraiding him for his taste in music. He snapped the handle up but it didn’t budge.

  It was still locked.

  He stepped back and fumbled at the key fob. He pressed the button and heard the satisfyingly heavy clunk as the doors unlocked. He grasped the handle to the rear passenger door this time; if anyone were inside it would be here that he would find them. The door swung open and the front interior light flickered on, adding to the brightness. It was empty. He looked about the interior but everything seemed to be as it should, save for the glinting fragments of broken crayon that littered the footwells.

  And the centre cabin light. The switch had been moved from its usual “door” position to “on”. He leant forward and placed a foot into the car to get a better look; reaching over the child seat he flicked the switch back and forth, satisfying himself that it could not have moved by itself. He finally clicked it to “off” and the light in the rear of the car slowly dimmed.

  At that very moment what felt like a hand slipped under his raised arm and tickled him. Something any child might do when presented with such an opportunity. Without any visible cause he reacted to it as he might an electric shock. His arm shot down and he slammed back against the rear of the passenger seat. With the only light-source behind him the back seat was mostly in shadow. He stared down at the child seat.

  It was no longer empty.

  His first thoughts were that it was that damned rag doll again. But he knew it couldn’t possibly be. And what he was presented with here filled the seat more fully than any doll would.

  It was a child.

  Arms rested limply on the lap. The legs, bare from the knees down, were scabbed and bruised. The face had a greyish complexion that darkened towards the right side. There was an odd doughiness to the general countenance, as if the skull beneath, the very structure that kept everything from falling apart, had in some way failed. The mouth lolled in a peculiar lopsided gape. The thin blue-tinged lips were slack and dark strings of mucous hung there. Beneath the sagging forehead, heavy-lidded half-closed eyes stared impassively.

  Although she was a dead broken thing, her father still recognised her and felt the overwhelming urge to hold the child to him. His lips mouthed her name over and over, but he was unable to produce the sounds. But there were other words jostling for attention that sliced through his fogged mind.

  This is not re
ally happening; you are not real!

  He bent down and reached out with both hands. As he shifted his position his trailing foot slipped from the lintel and he tumbled away grasping at empty air. He fell sobbing onto the driveway. Oblivious to his own pain, he was instantly up again and scrambled onto his knees looking frantically about. The seat was empty.

  “What on earth are you playing at?” The voice came from the open front door.

  Debs was standing there with her dressing gown pulled tightly about her, arms folded in a gesture of disapproval. As he turned towards her and she saw the sheen of the tear tracks on his face her steely expression softened.

  “My God, what’s the matter?”

  “No,” said Debs, watching her husband from the living room door. “I don’t think you have a brain tumour.”

  “I didn’t imagine it; I saw what I saw.”

  He’d already been upstairs twice to check on Katie who was sleeping soundly.

  “If you’re worried about it, make an appointment to see the docs on Monday; but I think you’re just over-tired.”

  “But after all the other stuff that’s happened; it’s as though…”

  Debs could see where the conversation was going; she cut him off.

  “And don’t start with that haunted nonsense again, you don’t even believe in ghosts. And anyway I would have thought that any self-respecting ghost would find something better to haunt than a Japanese car.”

  “It’s Korean.”

  “Well Korean, then. The point is, if it were a ghost, wouldn’t you expect to see one of those typical long-haired Asian girls sitting in the back seat?”

  “Stop it,” Dave shuddered at the memory of what he had seen. “I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously.”

  “But you didn’t see a ghost, you saw…”

  “Katie, I know.”

  “Who was tucked up in bed the whole time.”

  He could see what Debs was doing; making light of the whole incident.

  “Whatever you saw, or thought you saw, came from in here,” she tapped him on the head with an index finger. “Christ! And everyone always tells me that you’re the rational one in this relationship. Anyway, look at the time. We can talk about this in the morning. Are you coming back up?”

  “I’ll be up in a minute,” he said. “I never actually thought that the car was haunted - just the car seat.”

  “That’s it, I’m off to bed,” she said, and left him in semi-darkness.

  He waited until she was in bed and settled before going up to join her. Before slipping beneath the covers he chanced one final look out of the window at the car below. All was quiet.

  The day started brightly. The sky was a faultless blue, save for the aircraft high above that caught the rays of the rising sun, looking like needles embroidering the emptiness with their white cotton threads. Dave watched from the bay window and waited as the sun slowly lit up the frost on the cars, watched as the ice darkened, before finally returning to water. The pink of the child seat shone bright against the black interior as the sun swung up and around the neighbouring houses.

  His recollections of the previous night receded into the shadows. The unfaltering light of day dispelled his apprehensions. He knew what he’d experienced was not a dream, but now that was precisely how it seemed to him. The fears that had kept him awake through most of the night were, in the cold morning light, so easily dismissed.

  He finished his coffee, picked up his car keys and stepped outside. He was still wearing the same tatty old tee-shirt and jogging pants he’d worn last night, but as he stepped from the shadow of the house he felt the warmth of the sun on him. He unlocked the car and opened the rear passenger door.

  He looked down at the seat. Empty now, though the memory of what he’d seen sent a shiver through him. The seat belt was still attached, caught around one of the loops that kept the webbing in place. Could it have been this, or a shadow cast by it, that had somehow caused him to see what he did? It didn’t seem likely. The thing he had seen in the seat - he couldn’t bring himself to think of it as his daughter - had had a physical presence that could not be explained away as a mere cluster of shadows. There had still been enough light to see by. He thought about the injuries he’d seen, and found himself scrutinising the fabric of the seat for any telltale stains. It was, of course, flawless.

  After some moments of hesitation he reached down and, placing one hand under the front of the seat, he unhooked the belt with the other. He then gently lifted it out. Regardless of what he now wanted to believe, he knew that he would not be getting into the car again with the seat still there.

  Back in the house he found Katie sitting on the stairs waiting for him.

  “I didn’t think you were up yet, it isn’t a school day you know,” he said.

  “I heard you sneaking out.”

  There was an accusing look on her face.

  “I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. Is your mum up yet?”

  She shook her head, looked back upstairs and screamed at the top of her voice: “Mummy!”

  Then Katie turned to her father, smiling.

  “She’s just getting up now,” she said.

  Debs said nothing over breakfast about the previous night. Mainly, he suspected, because Katie was within earshot and neither of them were too keen to field the inevitable barrage of questions that were sure to follow. But he also detected in her a general reluctance to discuss it. He recalled the expression on her face as he described seeing their dead daughter. She’d been so flippant about it, but he’d caught a look in her eye that told him a different story. In truth he was quietly relieved by the morning’s lack of conversation, as he’d been dreading the subject being raised again. Now realising that his wife held a similar concern helped him to draw a line under the whole experience. He already felt foolish enough getting into such a state and had already dismissed any thoughts about seeing a doctor.

  He still felt the occasional twinge of apprehension whenever he looked out at the driveway. But with the seat gone, he found his expectation of seeing something diminished as the morning progressed. Of course, Katie would insist on its return once she realised it wasn’t there.

  After breakfast Dave went up into the loft. If he were going to take the chair back to the tip he thought it would be an ideal opportunity to get rid of some of the other junk that he’d stowed away. And if he were going to do it, better now before the sun on the slate roof raised the temperature and turned the cramped, grimy space into a furnace. It was really just an excuse, however; the uneasy atmosphere between he and Debs had been building all morning, but he knew that confronting it head-on would just start an almighty row. He fetched the stepladder from the garden shed and, trying carefully not to scrape the wallpaper, disappeared upstairs with it.

  “Can I come too?” Katie called up to him, trying to squeeze her face through the gaps in the balustrade. Behind her Debs was shouting for her to stop acting so stupid.

  “You stay where you are, sweetie,” Dave shouted back down as he set up the ladder, “it’s incredibly dark and dirty up there and not at all suitable for little girls.”

  He mounted the steps and pushed the square panel over the opening upwards into the inky black. He could understand Katie’s fascination with the small wooden door in the ceiling. It was mysterious, forbidden, like something from the pages of an Enid Blyton story. He remembered her once asking who lived up there. And as he poked his head up and swung the beam of his torch across the dusty, shrouded shapes, which sent long shadows dancing across the tiles and the bare brick of the chimney breast, he found himself thinking the same thing. Just who indeed did live up here?

  He pulled himself through the narrow opening, conscious that a substantial drop to the foot of the stairs awaited him if he slipped. He shuffled forwards onto the grimy floor. He probed the boxes that were within easy reach first. Everything was wrapped in plastic bin liners against the filth of the place. A coating of gritty lime cem
ent that had crumbled away from the old slates above covered every surface.

  He identified the contents of a number of boxes. There were books, magazines, a stack of old vinyl albums that were destined never to see the light of day again. Against the far wall rested the battered case containing his electric guitar; the forgotten relics of a life before children. The next time Katie asked him who lived behind the square door in the ceiling he had the answer.

  He did. Once; but that seemed a lifetime ago.

  The sound of Debs calling from downstairs brought him back to the present.

  “What did you say?” he shouted back.

  No reply.

  “Hello?” he called again and shuffled towards the opening.

  Debs repeated what she’d just said, only louder this time and sounding more irate. The message meant for him was broken up with instructions to Katie to stop jumping about. He caught something about them both nipping out for new school shoes, but little else. She’d always had this annoying habit of starting conversations with him from a different room.

  “Okay, but you’ll need to shift my car first.” He thought it unwise to ask her to repeat herself a third time. “My keys are on the shelf.”

  Then he heard Katie shouting “Bye Dad” and the front door slamming shut. He remained crouched in the gloom for several seconds staring into the dust-speckled rectangular column of light. Besides the slow ticking of his watch the house was suddenly, eerily quiet.

  “Debs, Katie?” he shouted down, but was met with silence. Had they gone already?

  A sense of unease spread through him and he scrambled out of the loft. As he descended the steps he could see a gleam of silver from Deb’s car reflecting into the hall. They haven’t gone yet, he thought to himself as he reached for the door. But his relief lasted only for a moment. Her car was still in the drive - but his was gone. He swung open the front door and raced outside looking wildly about, hoping she had merely reversed it out of the drive. But the road was deserted; his wife and daughter were already gone. He noticed the empty back seat of the remaining car. Debs had taken the child seat from her own car and placed it into his. However, this didn’t quell the rising sense of panic within him. Because it meant that the other seat would still be where he’d put it earlier.