by Francis CoCo
“What the-”
“Max,” said Angela, “look. Someone’s coming.”
Max and I glanced back. A car was coming down the road towards us. Actually, it couldn’t be a car as there was only one headlight and you couldn’t see the car behind it as you would be able to if it were a car with a blown headlight. A motorcycle. And it looked like he had his high beams on.
“Shit.” Max said.
As soon as he’d said that, the light was inches from our bumper. It had come down the road quick.
“This asshole,” Max said, looking in his rear view mirror, “do you see how close this asshole is?”
“I guess he wants you to move,” I said.
“Hey guys,” Angela said quietly, “hey, the lights are gone.”
“There’s room for him to go around,” Max grumbled, “why doesn’t he just go around?”
“Maybe he lives in that farm house,” I said, “maybe’s he’s wondering what we’re doing out here at ten o’clock at night.”
I asked him if he could turn the car around.
“There isn’t room, I’ll have to pull in that driveway...” he said, looking at the farm house up ahead. There wasn’t a car anywhere near it – it probably did belong to the guy on the motorcycle.
The light continued to shine bright behind us- very bright. I looked back. I couldn’t see anyone behind it. I could only see the light- which looked brilliant and white. I didn’t for one second question that it were anything but a motorcycle. I didn’t question that at all, not until Max had turned around in the driveway of the farmhouse and went to pass it, that is.
We sat in the driveway of the farm house. Max had pulled in just a bit, right by the mailbox, only enough to let the guy pass us. The light stayed where it was, not moving one inch. It was insanely bright- intensely white. Max was expecting the guy to drive on past but when he didn’t, Max said, “Yeah, I guess he lives here. Fuck.”
He reversed and pulled back onto the dirt road. We were then, face to face with it. It still didn’t move and stayed where it was.
Angela sat back in her seat, “Those red lights are gone anyway,” she said with a sigh. I could tell she was disappointed that it was over. Whatever it had been.
I looked from the guy on the motorcycle to the sky, where the lights had been and saw that she was right. They were gone. Nothing there. Just stars and sky. That was weird, I thought.
Max began to drive towards the guy on the motorcycle, who, continued to stay planted where he was, facing us. I wasn’t too concerned about him, more, I was annoyed that he didn’t just go ahead and pass us but, my eyes kind of rested on him as we were about to pass him. I guess, like one of those situations where someone cuts you off in traffic and you come up to them at a red light later, you always want to look and see who the asshole is behind the wheel. And so, as we went to pass the guy on the motorcycle, something even more bizarre happened: he disappeared.
Max slammed on the brake and the three of us looked around. When I say the light disappeared, I mean it disappeared. It didn’t go into the cornfields, it didn’t drive past us, it just vanished.
We sat alone on the dirt road. No guy on a motorcycle- no light- no red lasers up in the sky- just me, Max and Angela sitting in the middle of rows and rows of cornfields and nothing else in sight.
We were all confused- not sure what had just happened- and we sat for a minute, discussing the fact that there had been a light- a light that we’d thought was a motorcycle and that it had disappeared in front of our very eyes.
“I don’t understand,” Angela was saying, “I don’t see how that could be...”
“Oh, fuck me,” Max said cryptically, “ah, shit.”
He was looking in the rear view mirror. I didn’t even have to ask him what he was looking at. I turned around and saw for myself- it was the Light-which, we now knew was not a guy on a motorcycle. We didn’t know what it was but we knew it was no vehicle- no person- and it was back, standing behind our car.
“Wha-?” Angela said, turning to see what Max and I were seeing. Before she could say anything, Max put the car in drive and begin to drive away- keeping his eyes on the Light in the rear view the whole time.
At first, it seemed like it was going to stay where it was- while we drove away from it, but after a few seconds, it was on us- it was right on us, at our back window- on our bumper.
“Oh my God,” I said, “oh my God… It’s chasing us...”
“Step on it, Max,” Angela said carefully. She looked like she was about to cry. There was a very controlled expression of terror on her face.
The car sped up- we weren’t far from the entrance to the road- but we weren’t exactly close either- the Light was still on our bumper. We all kept our eyes glued to the rear window - Angela and I were turned around in our seats, Max’s eyes were locked on the rear view mirror. My heart was in my chest. I thought I might die.
Just as we got to the end of the road- just when I thought I might black out from fear- Max turned off of Inferno Way and onto the main road.
Once again, the Light vanished.
Chapter 3
They dropped me off at home. Almost as if I were in a trance, I stepped out of the car, unlocked the door to my apartment and went inside. I heard the car pulling out of the gravel driveway but I didn’t even look back and wave. I didn’t look back at all. I just walked inside.
My apartment looked different. It was exactly the same as I’d left it that morning, on my way to work, rushing out the door so I would have time to run in the Save n’ Shop to pick up the streamers and balloons for the Halloween party, but, something was different.
I flipped on the lamp by the front door and it cast a yellowy circle on my Pottery Barn rug. The rug had been a gift from Brian. I was always pointing out the things I wanted from the Pottery Barn catalog and one day, it had arrived via FedEx, unexpectedly. I had been so excited. It was the one I liked the most; the rug with the birds and the vines and the bright, rich colors. I had been so excited to get it but now I almost hated looking at it because, it just made me think of that day and made me remember him. I made a mental note to replace it as soon as I could. Give this one to Angela. I loved it but I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore.
I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I took out a bottled water and gunned it. I was incredibly thirsty. I sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the floor.
What just happened?
What was that?
I sat there for a long time. Thirty minutes. Maybe an hour. My knees felt weak. My legs felt like they didn’t want to move- like they’d been turned to jelly. My mind flashed to just a few hours before, walking through the parking lot of Stitches – the feeling of contentment I’d felt- and then, sitting at my kitchen table and feeling… What was I feeling? Confused? Disoriented? Scared? I felt something, that’s for sure.
Finally, I got up and went to my bedroom. I picked up my purse from the couch and carried it up the stairs with me and dropped it in the hallway, right outside my bedroom door. I needed to charge my phone, which was in my purse but, I didn’t have the strength to pull it out- to find my charger. Plus, I just didn’t care. So I left it.
Without brushing my teeth, or taking out my contacts, or changing my clothes, or anything, I got into bed.
And I lay there.
I would like to say that I lay there thinking but I wasn’t really thinking. I couldn’t think. And so I just stared at the ceiling and then, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
_____
My cell phone was ringing in my purse. I could faintly hear it, ringing in the hallway- muffled- I pushed back the covers and looked at the clock on the table beside me: It was 2 a.m. I went into hallway and picked up my purse and carried it downstairs to the living room. The lamp was still on from when I’d come in earlier, sometime around eleven, maybe even twelve, I didn’t know.
The phone had stopped ringing once I’d located it- in the side poc
ket of my Vera Bradley bag (ugly ugly purse, but completely necessary with all it’s pockets and compartments), and pulled it out. I sat down on the couch and checked and saw that the missed call had been from Angela.
I called her back.
“Hey,” she said, picking up on the second ring. She was alert, wide awake. I was still half asleep and moving as if I were on auto-pilot.
“Hey,” I said, walking back up the stairs and into my room and getting back into bed. Cozy, flannel sheets. The scent of Frasir fir from the tart warmer left on in the connecting bathroom.
She didn’t say anything and I said, “Are you okay?”
“Not really. Are you?”
“No.”
She was quiet for a few seconds and I knew that she was probably nervous about what we’d seen. Like I was. I asked her if she wanted to come over.
“I’m on my way,” she said flatly and hung up without saying another word.
I opened the door and Angela pushed her way in, almost like she was afraid that something was chasing her. I shut the door behind her and before I could, she said, “lock it!”
“I was going to,” I said, calmly turning the deadbolt.
She, like me, was still fully dressed, in the same clothes she’d worn to work the previous day.
“Sorry,” she said, falling back onto the couch and reaching up and pulling her hair back, away from her face, “I’m sorry, I’m just… I’m sort of freaking out...”
“Do you want something to drink?”
“Alcohol, you mean?”
“No, not alcohol… I mean, I don’t have any… and you don’t drink.”
“I would take some right about now,” she said, leaning back into the couch. She looked around the room and then cut her eyes at me and said, “Paige, What was that?”
I went over and sat down beside her.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“But you saw it, right? You saw the Light?”
“Of course I saw it.”
“And...you saw it just, just disappear, right?”
“Yes. I saw that.”
“But, what does that? I mean, what could do that?”
“I have no idea.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Sleeping.”
“You’ve been asleep? How?”
I told her I didn’t know. I just fell asleep. I asked her what she’d been doing.
“I’ve been at home shitting my pants.”
I laughed, “Not literally I hope.”
“How can you laugh?” she said, “this isn’t funny. This isn’t funny at all- Paige, something happened to us! You do know that, right? That something happened to us tonight?”
“I know,” I said, “but what? I just, I can’t figure out what it was.”
Angela shook her head. She didn’t say anything. I asked her about Max. Where was he? Had she talked to him?
“I dropped him off. He didn’t say much. He just asked me to drop him off and so I did. I probably shouldn’t have left him, though.”
“Should we go check on him?”
Angela glanced nervously at the door, like she didn’t want to go out- in the night- out where that, Light, being, intelligence, whatever it was, was. She put her hand to her chest and exhaled.
“I don’t know,” she said, moving her eyes to lock with mine,“maybe.”
I knew she didn’t want to leave. In the middle of the night. But he didn’t live far (no one lived far in this town) and really, we needed to check on him.
“Let me get my purse,” I said.
Once in the car, Angela immediately reached over and clicked the button to lock the doors.
“Drive fast, would you?” she said, her voice rising, “I don’t want to be out here.”
“You drove over here,”
“I didn’t like it!”
I pulled out of the driveway and headed down my empty street. I drove through town as fast as I could without speeding and Angela sat beside me, taking deep breaths, on the verge of tears, telling me to hurry, hurry.
Five minutes later, we were pulling up to Max’s house. He lived in a little brick ranch style house. It had been his grandmother’s- she’d left it to him in her will, along with everything else she owned, which wasn’t much – not as far as money went- but, she did leave him a nice house and an older New Yorker town car which was not exactly what you expected a big, burly bartender to be driving. The house was nice, though. It sat on the edge of town, by itself on a small hill.
His porch light was on. So were a lot of other lights inside. Honestly, the place was lit up like a Christmas tree.
We got out of the car and hurried up to the door.
Angela went to knock but Max opened the door, before she’d been able to -just as she put her fist up to the door.
He’d changed into his pajamas, checkered flannel pajama bottoms and a black AC/DC t-shirt. He wore a red pin striped bathrobe over it, which hung open. He held a cigarette in his hand, unlit and said, “I was just about to have a smoke...” and ushered us inside.
“You were going out to smoke?” Angela said, when we’d stepped inside the foyer. She said it like she couldn’t believe he would possibly have the nerve.
“Normally I smoke outside,” he said, “but, yeah,… no… come sit at the table with me.”
We followed him through the living room- the room filled with his grandmother’s furnishings; Tiffany style lamps, a large oriental rug, a peach couch and cream embroidered high back chair with arm pads. The house was spectacular, in fact. The style was definitely not that of a bachelor. I wished I could inherit such a house. His grandmother had wonderful taste. There was even an oil painting of her in the corner by the bookshelf, done of her when she was young, probably in her twenties, looking like a Hollywood starlet. In front of it, on the floor, were a pair of Max’s dirty socks.
As we walked through to the kitchen, I noticed that every lamp was on. The television was on but muted. An advertisement for spray on hair was going on the television: a bald man bent forward as the pitch man sprayed his head with an aerosol can, covering the bald spot. The bald man stood up and looked in the mirror- he was all smiles.
In the kitchen, we all sat down at the dark wood table.
“Coffee?” Max said, turning to the French Press sitting on the counter and pouring himself a cup.
I asked how long he’d been up.
“I haven’t gone to sleep,” he said, reaching for the sugar. The spoon tinked against the cup and I saw that his hand was shaking.
“Paige was asleep,” Angela said accusingly, getting up to get herself a cup just as Max sat down.
“How?” he said looking at me and taking a sip. His curly hair was damp.
“I don’t know,” I said, “I don’t know.” They both made me feel like I should apologize for falling asleep.
Max and Angela sat taking sips of their coffee and I sat, staring at the basket in the middle of the table. A basket filled with bills and pens and post-it notes. It was almost three in the morning. Angela and I were to be at work in five hours. We all sat quiet- not saying a word. I asked Max if he was okay.
After a minute of silence he said, “Not really… when I came home, I took a shower. I was in there for a long time… I was thinking while I was in there, thinking...well, I don’t think we should tell anybody about what we saw tonight. It would be hard to explain and I honestly don’t think anyone would believe us.”
“I agree,” said Angela, looking over at him and then at me.
I didn’t know who exactly I had to tell – maybe my mother? I might call and tell her- but I didn’t say that, I just nodded and said, “Right. It would certainly be a difficult thing to try and explain.”
We all sat mute for a while, Max and Angela drinking their coffee and me staring at the basket in the middle of the table. I felt like I should say something but I didn’t know what to say.
Max’s cat, a big white cat named, Hef, (named th
at because he scored so much tail- according to Max) came into the kitchen and laid down on the floor. He glared at us for a minute and then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
“Any idea what that was?” Max said, after a long, uncomfortable silence, looking to me and then to Angela, who had laid her head down, and was resting on her arms which were folded in front of her on the table. She didn’t look up.
“It seemed to have an… an intelligence, I mean, it was interacting with us...” I said. It was the only way I could describe it- this thing – Light or whatever it was- it seemed to be able to think- it seemed to be alive. Actually, it didn’t seem to be- it was. It was alive. It did have an intelligence.
Max lit his cigarette and cleared his throat. He nodded, “It did,” he said, inhaling smoke, “it certainly did. No doubt about that.”
“You know what?” I said, “we thought it was a guy on a motorcycle but, if you think about it, there was no sound- no sound of a motor- no sound at all – why did we think it was a guy on a motorcycle?”
“Because,” Max said, “your brain doesn’t go straight to the obscure- your brain associates things with what you know. A single light coming down a road- well, what else would you think?”
Angela brought her head up, “I’m scared,” she said, “I’m scared… what was it? Are we going to see it again? What if it comes to our homes?”