When the Darkness Falls

by Gonzalez, J. F.

  I felt my heart beating as she told me this. She was describing hundreds of nights I’d slept since Lisa died.

  “And then your arms slipped down and I heard the rustling of somebody getting up. The creases from the indentations on the sheet shifted, and part of it slipped down...as if somebody was sitting up...” Here she paused. I could tell she was struggling to continue, that she still didn’t know what to make of what she saw. “And then...I swear to God this is the truth, Gregg, and I wasn’t tripping or anything, but...I swear I heard this sound...like a child sucking its thumb.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or feel terror the way Tina did. I felt this warm sense of relief rush through me. I think what I felt was vindication. I smiled. I felt like crying and it took all my willpower to stem the tears.

  “Doesn’t that freak you out?” Tina asked.

  “So it’s the ghost of a baby,” I said, shrugging nonchalantly, fighting to hold back the sudden wave of emotion. “Maybe a baby used to live here. I don’t see anything to be frightened of.”

  “But why would the ghost of a baby be suddenly showing up? I’ve been here for three months!”

  I don’t remember how I responded. What she told me confirmed that I wasn’t insane. She didn’t know it, but that confession helped me on the road to my latest recovery.

  I stayed with Tina for another three weeks and she reported the visitations more. I feigned ignorance as we’d sit in the living room listening to the sounds of my daughter playing and laughing at our feet. Tina would sit spellbound, taking hits off her hash pipe. “This is fucking intense, man!” I stopped doing drugs that first night she told me about her experience. I suppose I stayed with her another few weeks to confirm the fact that we were both experiencing the same thing.

  I moved out and checked myself back into rehab again.

  Sometimes Lisa showed up. When I was alone and sensed she was there, I’d call out to her. She’d appear at my feet and I’d lean down and whisper that I loved her. I could sense her smile and I’d hear her little voice saying “I love you, too, Da-eee!”

  The rehabilitation center found me a job as a computer consultant for an insurance company, and nine months later I had a small apartment again. I wasn’t running away from my past anymore. I embraced it; embraced Lisa; embraced the experience I’d had with her, and counted myself lucky I’d had her. I still felt sad occasionally that she was no longer alive, but I felt rejoiced in knowing her spirit lived on. That her spirit and her memory lived within me.

  I could also sense Lisa’s growing happiness at my change of behavior. When I met Christy I could tell Lisa liked her. I told Christy about my past, about my first marriage and Lisa and what happened to her, but I left out the part of my schizophrenia diagnosis. I didn’t tell her about Lisa coming back, either. I wanted to see if Christy sensed her the way Tina did. Christy never did and I left it at that. It would be my little secret. I was at peace with myself for the first time in my life, and because of that my physical relationship with Christy bore fruit. Six months after we met we were getting married, and eighteen months after that Christy was pregnant.

  I didn’t think about it at the time, but looking back on it I remember Lisa’s sense of jubilation during that period. When the two of us were alone she’d dart about the house like she did when she was alive, making sounds, playing with knick-knacks, hugging my legs. I had to be careful in displaying my affection to her when Christy was around, but she seemed to understand. And as the months passed during Christy’s pregnancy I didn’t look at the birth of another child in dread. I welcomed it. We purposefully did not have an amniocentesis done because of the potential consequences to the fetus, plus we wanted our child’s sex to be a secret. Therefore, when Annabelle Lee Walker was born four days ago I think I cried a little bit more in happiness because I secretly wanted a little girl again. And my wish came true.

  Annabelle has Christy’s eyes and mouth and she has my facial structure and hair. She also has Christy’s feisty temper.

  Lisa hasn’t shown up since Christy and I left for the hospital five days ago. She never popped in the apartment to make her presence known; she never reached out to me; I did not feel her spectral presence or hear her sucking her thumb. I didn’t have to. I know she’s here. How do I know this?

  The fourth toe of Annabelle’s feet are slightly inclined in the opposite direction of her other toes.

  Mummy

  IT HAD BEEN Johnny’s idea to coerce Ricky to pretend to be the Mummy. Ricky came from that weird family that moved in to the old house on the end of the street, and the rest of the kids in the neighborhood made fun of him because his parents were even weirder than the house was. The house itself had a long reputation for being haunted—now that I look back on it, every old, dilapidated house quickly gains a similar reputation among the neighborhood kids. But to hear that Ricky’s parents had specifically asked the real estate agent for the house was what branded Ricky a weirdo in our minds. And because of it, when we were playing, Ricky always got stuck with playing the roles the rest of us didn’t want.

  You know the drill: Ricky was always “it”; he was always the criminal in cops- and-robbers; he was always the lion when we played Mighty Hunter. And on this late summer afternoon as we were gathered at the Hetfield twins’ house, lounging in the big maple tree in their backyard, Johnny came up with the idea of playing Mummy.

  We’d all been watching Creature Feature a few nights ago and they’d played the old Universal Mummy film. The Hetfield twins and I had been pretty creeped out by it, but Ricky had laughed. “Oh, how scary!” he’d squealed. He began walking in that Boris Karloff limp, dragging his left leg behind him. “I’m the Mummy!” he cried, raising his arms out in a menacing gesture.

  Johnny had gotten the joke and screamed mockingly. “Oh no! It’s the Mummy! I’ve got to get away!” And he ran away shrieking with laughter as Ricky shambled along after him. After awhile Ricky stopped and turned back to us, laughing.

  We got the joke after that. What was there to be scared of when you had a monster that could barely move?

  This subject had come up again as we all sat around the maple tree. Ricky read a magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland, and now he passed an issue of the magazine around with Boris Karloff on the cover. “The mummy isn’t that scary. Now the Wolfman, that’s scary!”

  “What do you mean the Mummy isn’t scary?” Johnny said, and from his tone of voice I could tell that he was itching for a teasing. The Hetfield twins recognized this and perked up. But because Ricky was new to the neighborhood, he didn’t recognize the tone in Johnny’s voice.

  “He just isn’t,” Rick said.

  “But he’s wrapped up in all those bandages,” Johnny said. “That’s got to be scary.”

  Ricky shrugged. “If you think so.”

  “I think so,” Johnny said, and now he jumped from his spot on the tree and stepped up to Ricky, his tone and demeanor threatening. “And I think you need a lesson in how scary it really is.”

  Ricky just looked at him and Johnny grabbed him. “You freak! Moving in to the old Jones’ place and your parents a bunch of damn hippie witches! You think that’s scary, I’ll show you real scary.”

  Grabbing Ricky roughly the way he did must have scared him, because now the smaller boy began struggling. Johnny turned to me and motioned, and I came over to help. I grabbed Ricky and together we hustled him into the empty garage, the Hetfield twins trailing along behind us. My heart was pounding with excitement. I didn’t know what Johnny had in mind, but I knew it was going to be some sort of childhood torture. He had jacked me up a year ago when I moved into the neighborhood by pinning me to the ground and holding a large garden spider over my face. I was so scared, I pissed my pants.

  I was expecting something similar. Johnny barked at William Hetfield: “Gimme a couple of rolls of bandages.” The Hetfield twins’ parents worked at the medical clinic as a doctor and a nurse respectively, and Will darte
d into the house. He emerged a moment later with several boxes of bandages and a pair of scissors and tape. Ricky was still struggling beneath the weight of Johnny, Mike, and myself. Will handed the bandages to Johnny, and with our help he began wrapping Ricky’s struggling form in the bandages. Johnny had to hit Ricky a few times to quiet him down, and that actually scared Ricky more than anything. This made Ricky easier to wrap up, and within ten minutes Ricky was trussed up like a mummy.

  Johnny bent over him, wrapping his face up tight. I could feel Ricky shivering inside the bandages. Johnny leered down at him. “Are mummies scary now, Ricky? Huh? What do you think, fart-face?”

  Ricky started struggling harder. His feet actually kicked out and connected with Johnny’s shin. Johnny snarled and kicked back, his foot connecting with Ricky’s head. Ricky went limp.

  For a moment, we all stood still.

  Ricky was still.

  Will leaned forward and bent over Ricky’s prone form, as if listening. Then he turned a frightened face toward us. “He ain’t breathing!”

  Johnny stood up and kicked Ricky in the ribs. “Quit fucking around, Ricky!”

  Ricky remained still.

  Now I was scared. I joined Will on the floor of the garage and felt Ricky. He was still. And very dead.

  I looked up at Johnny, blind terror rising in me. “You killed him.”

  “Me? You guys helped me. You’re just as guilty as I am.”

  That’s what started the fight. The three of us must have argued and yelled at each other for over an hour, and within that time we all cried at least once. I don’t know about the other guys, but I got to thinking about Ricky’s parents and the story that had floated around that they were witches. Of course, this was the early seventies when this happened, and back then any adult that didn’t look normal or associated with the hippies was often considered witchy. Ricky’s parents had probably been hippies at one time and still held onto the movement’s ideals by the time the seventies rolled around. They surely stood out like sore thumbs in the upper middle-class neighborhood of Oak Street where we all lived. But witches?

  Well, I’m older now, and much wiser. Or I should be. As a child I believed the stories I was told by Johnny and his older brother that they’d seen Ricky’s parents participating in some strange rites in their backyard with other dark-robed adults. How they’d all gathered around a fire and chanted. Of course as kids we all believed that, and combined with their physical appearances we all knew it must have been real. And to hear Ricky talking back then, how he’d said that his parents would protect him against anything, surely must have contributed to those fears.

  They never fingered any of us for what happened to Ricky. The official story is that the Hetfield twins went crazy one night and were confined to an insane asylum for the rest of their lives. Johnny was found in their garage strangled to death rather horribly. Ricky had simply disappeared. That all happened, too. You’ll understand why in a minute.

  Luckily none of the other kids in the neighborhood had seen me with the Hetfield twins, Ricky, or Johnny that day, and I claimed to not know anything about what had happened. I told everybody that I’d been at home watching TV. The police questioned everybody, of course. For awhile Ricky’s parents were considered suspects in all of this. They were eventually cleared, and they later moved to another state.

  Of course I only heard about this later on. A year later, when I turned thirteen, I ran away from home. I knew too much, you see. I knew exactly what was happening. And I knew I had to leave when I heard that Will Hetfield was discovered dead in his room one night at the state mental hospital, dead of asphyxiation.

  I ran away then, and I’ve never been back. But no matter how far I run I know I can never run far. I’ve known this all along ever since that fateful night in the Hetfield twins’ garage.

  You see, an hour after Ricky died, when we were all still sitting there crying and arguing with each other over who killed him, I saw. I know how Johnny was killed. I know what drove the Hetfield twins insane. I knew right from the beginning.

  I was the first one to see Ricky’s mummified form rise from the garage floor and stretch its twisted hands around Johnny’s neck.

  Riding the Storm Out

  CARRIE'S SCREAM WOKE Richard from a sound sleep.

  He shot out of bed, heart racing. Carrie was in bed, but she was screaming in terror. Her eyes were open, hands flailing in front of her. She was still caught in the throes of a nightmare.

  Richard grabbed Carrie’s shoulders and shook her. “Carrie! Wake up!”

  Carrie drew in a breath as if to let out another ear-piercing scream, then stopped. Her eyes changed from the glassy mirror of sleep to awakening as she realized that she was safe. “Richard,” she said.

  “You okay?” Richard’s heart was pounding. He tried to listen to see if Carrie’s screaming had woken up the kids. All was silent down the hall.

  “Yeah,” Carrie said. Wide-awake now, she was trying to catch her breath. She looked at Richard with a frightful expression. “That was the worst nightmare I ever had.”

  “What happened?”

  Carrie settled back against the headboard. Now that the initial fright was over, Richard felt himself beginning to wind down from the adrenaline rush. “It was weird. I was being chased by this...this...I don’t know how else to describe it. It was this crazy guy with an axe. He was chasing me. We were back in Portland, and—”

  “You were back home?” They had just settled in Silver Spring, Pennsylvania from Portland, Maine six months ago.

  “Yeah,” Carrie nodded. “But...the streets were completely deserted and I was on foot. I was only a few blocks from home and this guy was chasing me up and down various streets, trying to kill me. He had an axe.”

  “Wow!” Richard didn’t know what to say. He’d never heard of a dream in which somebody was trying to kill you.

  “I was always a block ahead of him and every street I turned down, he turned down, too.”

  “Was he somebody you know?”

  Carrie shook her head. “No. I have no idea who he was. He was just...some guy. He was wearing dark jeans and a white shirt, and...he was just kinda ordinary looking. Sandy blonde hair thinning at the top. Sensitive features. But...” She looked at him. “He looked insane. His eyes were like...pits of insanity.”

  Richard nodded. “And he was chasing you with an axe.”

  “Yeah. It seemed like he chased me for hours.” Carrie had calmed down now, and she settled back into bed, pulling the covers over herself. “I finally got a good enough lead on him that I was able to make it back to the house. I got in and slammed the door shut, then darted to the window and peeked out through the blinds. I saw him walk down the middle of the street, looking around trying to find me. He was holding that axe like...he was getting ready to use it. And all I could do was watch while he stalked down the middle of the street, looking around trying to find me.”

  “Is that when you woke up?”

  “Yes. Well, no. Not really.” She looked at Robert. “I woke up in the dream. It was like a dream within a dream. You know?”

  Robert nodded. She’d had a false awakening; she’d been dreaming that she was having a nightmare.

  “I woke up in the dream and I saw that I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. It was snowing outside. My screams brought you out to the living room.” Carrie related the nightmare with calm conviction, her features still evoked with fear from the memories. “I told you what happened in the dream, just as I’m telling you now. You opened the drapes and I looked out the window. There was nobody there. Just our street and falling snow.”

  “Our street here? In Silver Spring?”

  Carrie nodded. “Yes. And then you told me to lie back, that you were going to get me a drink of water. I sat up on the sofa and watched the snow fall outside, thinking it was all just a silly dream, and then I heard you come back from the kitchen. I turned around...” Her voice trembled and Robert could tell that she was re
aching the climax. “...and you were standing there in the doorway with the same look that guy had. You had that same look of madness in your face...and you were holding an axe in your hands.”

  Jesus, Robert thought. He shuddered.

  “That’s when I screamed,” Carrie said. “That’s when I really woke up.”

  “Man,” Richard said, shaking his head. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just...it kinda freaked me out.” Carrie looked at Richard and the beginnings of a grin curved her mouth upward. Richard smiled. He could tell Carrie was starting to feel better already. “Figures I would have a nightmare in which my husband was a mad axe killer.”

  Richard chuckled. He held up his hands. “Don’t worry! No axe here. It’s under the bed.”

  Carrie hit him playfully. “You!”

  They tumbled in bed, giggling. Richard held his wife, holding her close to him. “Least you didn’t wake up the kids,” he said as they lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake them.

  “Mmm hmmm,” Carrie said. She was starting to drift off again.

  Carrie didn’t mention the dream the next morning as they got the kids dressed, fed, and off to school. Richard watched the Weather Channel as he nursed a cup of coffee in the living room. Forecasters were predicating a big storm to hit much of the Eastern Seaboard. Central Pennsylvania was to be hit particularly hard. “They’re calling for a big one, honey,” Richard called out from the living room.

  “Really?” Carrie herded Mark and Susan ahead of her. Both children were bundled up in jackets, boots, gloves, and scarves. “When?”

  Richard shrugged. “Tomorrow?”

  “Is it gonna snow like it did in Maine, dad?” Matt asked, grinning gap-toothed.

  “Looks like it, sport.”

  “Cool!”

  Carrie grabbed her coat and scarf and quickly kissed Richard as she herded the kids out the door. “You going out today or seeing clients?”