by Joe Hart
“Someone who listens in on other people’s conversations.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. How would you hear someone if you were dropping off their eaves?”
I laughed and hugged her. “You’re right as usual. And yes, you can stay at Ashley’s tomorrow.”
She hugged me back and leapt from the bed to her closet, her feet barely touching the carpet. “Awesome! I’m gonna pack right now! I’ll have to take Megan’s party dress and her brush and her shiny shoes.”
“Don’t forget your own clothes,” I said, standing. I’m not sure if she heard me. Her head was buried beneath a pile of blankets, in search of her doll’s necessary items. I smiled and left her to it.
I crossed the hall and peeked into Jack’s room. He was there, in the middle of the floor, toys of all kinds spread around him as if he were at the epicenter of a G.I. Joe–Lego explosion. The wind moaned outside and nudged the house, causing loud creaks and cracks. I finished my drink and set the empty glass on the floor of the hallway. My head swam as I stood up and took a deep breath. The rum was doing its job. I pushed the door open and stood there, watching my son play for a moment. His little fingers spun a bright yellow Lego in several different directions before seating it into a makeshift wall his army men hid behind. I traced my memory back as far as I could go and tried to remember a time when I’d been as carefree as he was right then. Soft images came to me: playing cards with my father, a simple game of go fish, I think; my mother humming a soundless tune, her hands thrust in soapy dishwater while I pushed small cars around her feet. But that was all. The rest was a choppy blur of rain and low clouds that made my guts writhe. I steadied myself and stepped into his room.
“Whatcha doing, champ?”
“Playin’ Joes.” He didn’t raise his head from the small figures on the floor. I knelt beside him, picked up a particularly frightening member of Cobra, and made the figure’s knees flex wildly.
“You Joes are cowards! Hiding behind a wall!” I said in a mockingly high voice, and followed it up with a raspberry that made Jack’s eyes widen and then close with belly laughs. “Laughing at me? I’ll show you!” I made the figure trudge up to the wall Jack had built and aim a kick at its bottom. “Ow, oh no, I broke my foot!” I cried.
That did it. Jack fell backward in gales of laughter. I watched him, giggling a little myself, painfully aware of how brittle and fleeting this moment was. There would come a time when he wouldn’t laugh so easily at his father’s simple jokes. Someday the toys he loved so fervently would be packed away and forgotten. I hoped he wouldn’t forget the feeling of easy laughter, or the joy he got from the make-believe worlds he created, or what it felt like to be young.
Jack opened his eyes as his laughter subsided, and sat back up. “You’re so funny, Dad. You should be on TV.”
“Am I better than Diego?”
He thought for a few seconds. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You guess so? Come here!” I yelled, and began tickling him. He screamed laughter again and rolled away from me. Thunder slammed overhead and echoed into the deepening night like a rockslide. I sat up, my throat tightening, threatening to strangle me right there on the floor. A small hand on my arm brought me back, and I looked down at Jack’s upturned face.
“It’s okay, Dad. The storm’s outside and it can’t get in.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and the sadness I only allowed myself in moments of complete solitude tried to rise. Sadness for feeling so paralyzed that my six-year-old had to comfort me, sadness for sitting in his room with booze on my breath, sadness for feeling like a failure.
I leaned over and kissed him on the top of his head. “I know, buddy. You’re too smart, you know that?”
He just smiled and came closer. “Dad?” he asked in a whisper.
“Yeah?” I whispered back.
“Can I have a candy bar?”
I burst out laughing again. “Sure, buddy.” He responded with a small whoop and raced out the door, nearly tripping on my empty glass.
Before I made it back to the living room, I heard Jack exclaim to Jane that he was having a treat at my bidding. Jane raised an eyebrow at me and I merely shrugged, acting as if it was the first I’d heard of it. As I came closer to her, I could smell the familiar fragrance of her shampoo mixed with her own, more subtle scent. It was the smell of her skin, organic and real and singular to her. I put my hand on the small of her back and guided her away from the laundry. Her face was close to mine and a little smile played at the corner of her mouth. I kissed her. In that moment—with my children happy, one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, my wife pulled against me—I was content. I savored it. We finally moved apart, Jane’s smile now complete.
“What was that for?”
“Because I love you,” I said, simply. She hugged me close again and my eyes strayed to the window at her back. I stiffened.
Our front yard was dark. Darker than any yard should be on a June evening, a little past seven. Night had come early with the storm. Clouds thicker than I’d ever seen before coated the sky just above the tree line surrounding our home. I expected the tallest tops of the pines to actually scrape the hide of the storm at any moment. But what approached from the west cooled my blood and sent a runner of fear down my spine. A roiling whirlpool of clouds turned in a flattened spiral formation in the sky. It was enormous. Lanky tendrils of root-like thunderheads trailed up to a central black eye that rotated, swallowing the rain-laden clouds and spitting lightning every few seconds.
“Jesus” was all I managed. Jane pulled away from me and turned to the window. A hand went to her mouth.
“Is it a tornado?” she asked, transfixed by the swirling storm outside.
“I don’t think so, but we can’t be too sure.” Thunder roared like an enraged freight train and lightning touched one of the trees across the street, creating a shower of sparks and flying wood.
I swore and pulled Jane back from the window, my hands shaking on her shoulders. “Get Sara,” I said. She nodded and ran toward the opposite end of the house. I made my way to the kitchen, my knees threatening to drop me to the floor every few steps. Jack sat at the counter, contentedly chewing on a chocolate bar. “Jack, sit down in the archway, right now.”
Something in my voice must have registered, because his eyes widened and he nodded. Without so much as a word, he slid from the stool and went to the main archway leading to the living room and sat at its base. I turned to the pantry, my heart leaping in alarming directions within my rib cage. The bottle of rum was in my hand before I knew it, and I put it to my lips and swallowed one, two, three gulps before I had to take a breath. I shook my head as I capped the rum and set it in its place, noting with crazed amusement that it was almost empty.
There was a loud snapping sound, like a hundred rubber bands breaking at once, and the lights went out.
“Honey?” Jane’s voice was high and tight with worry. I stumbled from the pantry, amazed at how black the house was. The oblong shape of the counter was a darker shadow in the gloom along with the islands of stools beside it. Lightning lit up my path, and in its flicker I saw my family huddled together in the archway, Jane’s arms cuddling both of the kids close, their small faces white in the electric glare. They looked scared. Perhaps more frightened than me, but I doubted it.
“Flashlight,” I said and turned back to the kitchen. Wind pushed at the walls and made the house moan like a ship at sea, as I found the drawer I was looking for. Pencils, pens, paper, coupons ... finally my fingers touched the hard barrel of the Fenix light I kept there. I clicked the bulbous switch and cool, white light flooded the ceiling. I swung the flashlight around and focused on my family again, securing them in the beam. My nerves still felt like ragged live wires, but I could breath and my heart had slowed to a normal rate. I made my way around the end of the counter as lightning strobed again, suffusing everything.
My flashlight fluttered with it.
I stopped, sure I had i
magined it. The beam was steady, and I could see Jane raising a hand to block its glow. A word seemed balanced on her lips—perhaps a plea to shine it away from them? I didn’t find out because lightning flashed again at that moment and the Fenix went out for good. I stood, stunned for what felt like an eternity, shock radiating through me as my mind tried to catch up with what had happened. Electromagnetic charge in the air from the storm short-circuited the minute board within the light? Batteries dead? Coincidence? I shook the light. Nothing. Flicked the switch on and off. Nothing.
A roaring began to build beyond the roof, as if a wildfire burned above us. It grew louder with every passing second, and I wondered if this was what everyone meant when describing a tornado’s sound. Raising my head, I realized I was still flash blind from the combined brightness of the lightning and flashlight. There was a floating afterimage in the darkness of the living room. Three glowing, elongated shapes hung there in the black. I blinked, thinking they would be there on the inside of my eyelids too, but instead they disappeared. My stomach lurched. I opened my eyes as the golden points of light grew and sharpened in the room beyond my family. I tried to run, to pull them away from what my senses had already deemed real but my mind refused to accept.
The giant eyes and mouth hovered in the darkness. The mouth smiled.
I let out a half scream as lightning flared again, and I saw inhumanly long arms and hands coated in pale skin scooping my wife and children into an embrace. Thunder roared and the floor shuddered beneath my feet. I lunged toward the doorway as the lights came on, in a mockery of my horror. I tripped over a stool and fell to my knees in the now-vacant archway. My family was gone.
Chapter 2
An Absence and an Offer
I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline speeding through my veins, everything moving slower than me. My eyes shot around the room as I spun in a circle, the booze in my system protesting at the sudden velocity of my turning.
“Jane!” My voice was loud and strange in the house. Strange because I’m alone, I thought absently, as I scanned the living room and took a step into the space. “Sara, Jack!” I yelled, finding my legs and covering the distance to their rooms in a few strides. I burst, first, through Sara’s door, and then through Jack’s, the whole time willing away the tears that gathered at the bottom of my vision. I can’t lose it now, I thought. Although, judging from what I’d seen in the lightning, I’d already lost it. “Jane!” I screamed, panic flooding my voice with possibilities I couldn’t yet grasp, or didn’t want to. I flew to our bedroom and kicked the door wide. Our bathroom was empty, devoid of life except for a solitary spider above the toilet in a gossamer web I’d meant to sweep away the day before. I checked our closet, the hope that this was a prank or a joke finally dwindling down to nothing.
I retraced my steps back to the kitchen and then out to the mudroom. Their shoes were still there, all of them. Rain boots, sneakers, and sandals, all present. They couldn’t have gone far. I flung the outside door open and pushed through the storm door. The deck was black with moisture and puddles jumped with splashes of rain. The wind was less than I’d expected, and my eyes shot to the sky, ready to see the vortex I’d spotted earlier through our picture window. The sky was still gray and low, but there were no twisting clouds with a black center. It was an average storm again. I ran down the steps, calling their names, despite the fear that tried to pull me back into the house. I sped past Sara’s and Jack’s bikes, which lay on their sides like wounded animals. Past their swing set, the chains and seats swaying and dripping water silently. Mud slid beneath my socked feet and I nearly fell rounding the next corner, which opened unto our front yard. The lush new grass of summer looked too green in the odd, failing light of the day. There was nothing beneath the front porch but wood chips behind lattice. The woods surrounding our house were sparse and hadn’t fully greened yet, although they were well on their way. I searched the intertwining branches for movement or the shape of a person in the shadows. Nothing. A few more steps and I’d circumnavigated our property. They were gone.
My chest heaved with sobs as I pulled open the doors of Jane’s minivan, knowing what I’d find but not able to help myself. Only the scent of the air freshener greeted me. Rain continued to fall as I peered in through the windows of my truck, its cold touch wetting my skin through my clothes. I turned in a small circle and then sat, not gracefully, more of a crumpling like I’d been shot. My tears began to fall, indistinguishable from the rain that soaked my clothes.
The police were no help. They showed up about twenty minutes after I called. They came in just one car, an older officer with a salt-and-pepper mustache and a protruding belly, and a younger man sporting a blond crew cut along with a sneer. They asked their questions. I answered them as best I could. Someone came into my house and took my family. Could I describe them? It was very dark but the person was tall, I said, trying to sound sure of myself, although panic tried to seep through the cracks in my voice. Both officers nodded, and the younger one eyed the mostly empty bottle of rum I’d pulled from the pantry after calling 911. They made a short sweep of the property, took our family photo from the entryway, and said they would begin a file and be in touch within twelve hours.
Their brake lights flared before they turned from the driveway and accelerated away. I slumped to the floor of the kitchen, drinking the remainder of the rum down, my head tipped back. The image of the hands reaching out of the darkness and grabbing my family in their too-long fingers flooded my mind. I pressed a palm to my forehead, squeezing my eyes tight against the picture. I saw the burning smile and the eyes. The eyes. They were wide and slanted, orange and black, like two holes cut in the side of a furnace.
“No!” My voice came back to me in a short burst from the other end of the house. My chest heaved and I felt myself on the verge of hyperventilating. I tried to stand, but my head sloshed like a jostled aquarium and I fell, banging my skull against the cupboards behind me. At least there were no handles on the drawers. Jane had taken them off when we moved in since she hated the way they looked. Why the hell had we never gotten around to putting new handles on?
I cried. Their faces floated in front of me in a maelstrom of turning shapes, terror crushing their features as I reached for them. They were in the dark and so was I, spiraling out of control. Then I could see ground rushing up to meet me, much too fast.
I awoke the next morning on the kitchen floor, drool gathered in a cold puddle against my cheek. I sat up, so disoriented that it took a few seconds to remember, and when I did, the realization pushed me back down. I lay there and just stared at the ceiling, going over everything. Something had taken them from me—not someone, something. I tried winding my way through different explanations: I was hallucinating, I’d dreamed the whole thing, I was still drunk. But nothing added up.
I got up and ate a piece of toast, then called into the shop and told my boss I wouldn’t be in. He didn’t like it, but I must have sounded bad enough for him to think I was sick even though I didn’t say I was. Looking outside, I wasn’t surprised to see the neighborhood bathed in sunshine. The storm was just a memory, replaced by a cloudless cobalt sky. Puddles not yet dried up in the sun’s warmth lay everywhere like discarded mirrors.
In the bedroom I pulled down the holster from the top of the high bookshelf in the corner. The SIG Sauer was a darker outline in the unlit room. I pulled the handgun free, unlocked the trigger guard, released the magazine to check the capacity and then slammed it home. I hadn’t targeted with the pistol in over a year, but I remembered exactly how it functioned. Without bothering to lock the house, I went to my truck and climbed in, the heat of the interior a welcome feeling against the coldness that hung just beneath my skin. I sat there for a moment wondering what the hell I was doing. Where was I going? I looked down at the gun in the passenger foot space, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway.
I was going to look for my family.
I drove for five hours, stopping o
nly to fill up on gas once. I went around our neighborhood four times, my eyes searching the yards and windows of our neighbors’ houses. I stopped at each one, asking the same question—had they seen my family? The answer was always the same; no, nothing out of the ordinary, they hadn’t seen them.
After our neighborhood, I expanded the search. I drove through the back streets of the town parallel to our house, combed the main highways that intersected in the center of town. The people on the streets were the same as they always were. They went about their business between the storefronts and moved to their cars. They made deposits in the banks and walked their dogs. They talked to one another as if nothing had changed, as if my family hadn’t been taken from me.
At three in the afternoon I made my final stop before going home. I got back in the truck with the bottle of whiskey and started the engine. A warming, beseeching thought came to me, and I had to restrain myself from flooring the pedal on my way out of the liquor store’s parking lot. They had come home while I was away. For some reason they hadn’t answered the phone the dozen times I’d called while I was out.
I drove fast to the house and slid to a stop beside the minivan. My feet barely skimmed the ground, but even before I called out for them as I pushed through the door, I knew they weren’t there. A house has a certain sound to it when people are inside, especially people you love. Even silence has its own warmth, the quiet sound of breathing, of presence, of life. It’s what makes a house a home. There was none of this when I stepped inside, only the hollowness of unoccupied space. I yelled their names anyway.
When I was done yelling, I went back to the truck and got the whiskey. I had three swallows gone before I came inside. The light on the answering machine in the kitchen caught my eye and my heart leapt. Stabbing the play button I listened without patience to the date and time of the call. A man’s voice I didn’t recognize came on a moment later.