by E. M. Parker
Fiona doubled-checked that the door wasn’t locked, then took hold of the doorknob and began pulling as hard as she could. It wouldn’t open for her either.
“What’s wrong with this door?”
“I don’t know,” a frantic Olivia answered. “What are we gonna—”
A loud knock interrupted her before she could finish the question. A second knock quickly followed.
Olivia began tugging at the doorknob again. “Oh no. Please don’t do this. Please.”
After the third knock on the door, they heard stirring in Natalie’s bedroom.
“Please Hannah, you have to let us go.” When Olivia pulled on the doorknob, the knocking started up again, increasing in volume, until it penetrated the entire space around them.
There were tears in Olivia’s eyes now. “I’ll do whatever you want, just let us leave,” she pleaded, though her whispers were barely audible.
A groggy voice from the other room. “What’s going on in there?”
“We have to do something.”
Olivia ignored Fiona and kept her focus on the door. The pounding intensified. “I’ll do it. I promise. Just please stop this.”
The instant she said that, the pounding ceased. Fiona felt a pulsating wave of energy move through her as the door clicked.
When Olivia pulled this time, it opened. She took Fiona by the hand and ran out into the hallway. As she gently closed the door behind her, she heard from inside, “Olivia, what the hell are you doing out there?”
They ran into Fiona’s apartment. Once safely inside, Olivia was suddenly overcome with emotion and she ran to the couch. She was sobbing uncontrollably by the time Fiona reached her.
“It’s okay, honey. You’re safe now.” Olivia struggled to catch her breath and Fiona feared that she would hyperventilate. “You have to calm down.”
“I can’t. We’re not safe.” The words came out in spastic bursts. “Not until it’s finished.”
“Not until what’s finished?”
Olivia stopped sobbing long enough to look at Fiona. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Well I’m not waiting around here for anything. I’m calling the police and we’re getting you out of here.”
Fiona stood up from the couch and made her way into the kitchen where her phone was. “Please God, let it work,” she pleaded before picking it up. Her heart sank at the sight of the words NO SERVICE. She stuffed the phone in her pocket, grabbed her car keys, and ran back over to the couch.
“Come on, we have to leave.”
Olivia was no longer crying. “No, we can’t.”
“What?”
“We can’t leave. I made a promise to my sister, and I have to keep it.”
“We don’t have time to talk about this. We have to go, now.”
“I said no!”
The raw force of Olivia’s voice sent Fiona reeling backward.
Suddenly, she heard Natalie’s muffled voice through the wall. “Olivia, where are you? Stop playing games and get out here.”
Fiona grabbed Olivia by the shoulders. “Let’s go.”
“No!” She broke free of Fiona’s grip and slowly backed away from the door. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Not until it’s finished.” Her voice had a trace of menace to it now.
Ignoring the new fear that she suddenly felt, Fiona grabbed Olivia by the hand and forced her to the door. When she pulled on the doorknob, it wouldn’t turn. Fear immediately overtook her and she started pounding on the door. “Open, goddamn you.”
She was stopped cold by the sound of a voice.
“Olivia!” Natalie was standing in the hallway now. “Are you out here?”
Fiona had just turned around to tell Olivia to keep quiet when she was suddenly knocked to the ground. Before she could attempt to make it back to her feet, the walls on all sides of her began vibrating, as if hundreds of powerful, unseen hands were attempting to break through. Fiona struggled to her feet, only to be pushed down again. The walls began to crack, and Fiona was convinced that the ceiling was going to crumble on top of her.
“I have to go now, Fiona,” she heard Olivia shout over the deafening rumble. “It won’t stop until I do!”
Fiona turned to stop her, but she wasn’t there. She looked behind her just in time to see Olivia’s shadow disappear into her bedroom.
“Olivia, wait!”
Fiona finally got to her feet. But before she could make it to the hallway, her bedroom door slammed shut. The instant it did, the apartment fell into silence. No vibrating walls, no crumbling ceiling. The only sound that Fiona could hear as she approached the bedroom was the residual ringing in her ears.
“Olivia?”
Silence.
She put her hand on the doorknob, expecting that it would be locked. To her surprise, it turned. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. “I’m coming in.”
Fiona opened the door. The scream came before her mind even had the chance to process what she was seeing. When the horror finally settled in, she screamed again.
The bedroom was completely empty. Her furniture, her pictures, her clothes, even the window coverings, all of it was gone. The walls looked like they had recently been painted with a fresh coat of white. Brand new, except for a small section of exposed drywall on the area adjacent to Olivia’s bedroom.
Fiona could smell the paint as she walked into the room. She felt the floor buckle slightly under her feet, the same as it always had. She felt the sun’s warmth on her face as she approached the open window. She felt the firm structure of the walls as she reached out to touch them. Yet the entire scene felt like a movie that the real Fiona was observing from someplace very distant. None of it was real. It was either the construct of a waking dream or the vivid hallucination of a mind that had finally lost its grip on reality.
When an unfamiliar male voice began calling out from the living room, she concluded that it could not have been real either. But it made her jump nonetheless.
“When will you be back to paint it?”
“Sometime tonight,” another male voice answered. This voice sounded familiar, but Fiona struggled to place it.
“Well, you need to be quick about it. We can’t assume that Barlow won’t just randomly show up with some young couple ready to rent the place. This needs to be finished.”
“Everything is fine,” the familiar voice said. “Even if he does come in here, it’s not like he’ll start digging through the damn walls.”
“I sure hope not. We went through a lot of trouble for this.”
“I know we did, and it will be okay. Now stop worrying and let’s get out of here.”
The front door opened and then closed.
In the silence that followed, Fiona heard something else. A voice that she immediately recognized.
“See me.”
As if being led by something invisible, Fiona walked to the area of fresh drywall, kneeled in front of it, and listened.
“Here.”
When pressed against the drywall, her hand immediately went through. She began ripping it away piece by piece until the hole it had covered was fully exposed. Sensing that something was inside, she reached down into the narrow space between her wall and Olivia’s, feeling around blindly until her hand found something. It was cold and brittle. When she attempted to pick it up, it started moving. Fiona tried to move her hand out, but the cold and brittle thing grabbed her hand and squeezed. She didn’t know for sure that it was a hand until she felt its nails digging into her flesh.
Fiona screamed as the nails dug in deeper. She pulled her hand out and immediately cradled it; applying pressure that she hoped would stop the bleeding. But when she looked down at her hand, there was nothing there; no blood, no nail marks. In fact, the only discomfort she felt was the pressure that she had applied with her other hand.
When she looked up, the hole was gone. So was the exposed drywall. The wall had been completely painted over with the dingy off-white color that she alwa
ys knew was there. When she stepped backwards, she nearly tripped on the pair of running shoes that she always left in the middle of the floor. Unsure if they were real, she bent down to pick them up. They felt real. She threw them in the corner, and they landed with a gentle thud on top of the air mattress. Everything was exactly as she remembered it before her dream.
But was it a dream? And if it was a dream, and I was asleep, why am I standing?
The sound of drawers opening and closing in the kitchen interrupted the thought.
Fiona ran out of her bedroom to the sight of Olivia standing near the front door. She held something in her right hand, but shielded it from view.
If Fiona hadn’t known better, she would have thought that she had just woken up from a night of heavy drinking. Her thoughts were scattered, her memories fractured. How long had she been in her bedroom? How long was she separated from Olivia? Were there really men in her apartment? Why did her hand suddenly throb with shearing pain?
“Olivia, what are you doing?” Fiona asked as she struggled to get her bearings.
“I’m sorry. I have to do it.”
“Do what?” Fiona tried to walk toward her, but her legs felt like cement.
“Kill the other one who hurt my sister.” Olivia turned around to reveal the object in her hand. It was little more than a common steak knife, but in her hands, it may as well have been a machete.
“Olivia, please don’t do this.”
“The sooner I do it, the sooner she can finally leave.” Olivia reached for the door and opened it. “If I don’t see you again, I’m sorry. But at least you’ll be safe now.”
Fiona’s legs finally came to life and she sprinted for the door. “Olivia, don’t!” But she was too late. Olivia closed the door behind her before Fiona could reach it.
She flung the door open expecting to see her running down the hallway, but she was nowhere to be found.
“Olivia?”
At the sound of that, Natalie suddenly emerged from her apartment, a deranged look in her eyes.
“Olivia, are you out here?” When she saw Fiona, her face burned red with anger. “Is she with you?”
Fiona was just about to answer yes when Detectives Sullivan and Greer appeared in the hallway.
Natalie immediately turned to them and began pointing at Fiona. “Good, I’m glad you’re here. This bitch is trying to kidnap my daughter. Arrest her ass, now!”
Fiona noticed Greer move a hand slowly toward his hip. “Step back, Ms. Shelby,” he warned. “Right now.”
“Why are you telling me to step back? She took my daughter!”
Sullivan approached the pair, her attention on Fiona. “Ms. Graves?”
“She was in my apartment, but–”
“See? I told you she has her! What are you waiting for?”
“Quiet, Ms. Shelby,” Sullivan ordered. Then, to Fiona, “Why was she in your apartment?”
“Because she was afraid to be in her own.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Ms. Shelby, we’re only telling you one more time,” Greer said, his hand still parked on his hip.
Sullivan moved closer to Fiona. “Where is Olivia now?”
“I don’t know, but we have to find her. I’m worried she’s going to do something.”
“What?”
“Hurt someone.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Natalie blurted out. “She wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
“I think you’re wrong about that.”
“Tell us who, Ms. Graves,” Sullivan said.
“The other person who killed her sister.”
“Her sister?”
Fiona nodded. “Her twin sister. Hannah.”
The group looked at Natalie, who had inexplicably become quiet.
“What is she talking about, Ms. Shelby?”
Natalie’s lips quivered as she tried to speak. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Fiona replied bitterly. “Hannah. I saw her picture.”
Tears began streaking down Natalie’s face. “But she’s not… she’s still out there somewhere. I know she is.”
Greer suddenly pulled out a photo and walked over to Natalie. “Is this your daughter?”
Natalie took the picture. She began to break down the moment she looked at it. “It’s Hannah. Where did you find…” She couldn’t finish the sentence before her dam of pent-up emotion broke completely.
Greer took the photo. “Now I remember where I saw her,” he said to Sullivan.
“Where?”
“A missing persons case from almost three years ago. If I recall correctly, her classmates last saw her getting off the school bus at her normal stop, but she never made it home. It was thought that she was abducted before she got here, but she was never found.”
“And she’s still out there,” Natalie insisted.
“Not according to Olivia,” Fiona countered, doing so as delicately as she could. Despite everything, the anguish on Natalie’s face affected her. “And she promised to kill the other man who was responsible.”
“The other man?” Sullivan asked.
“Olivia said that Donald Tisdale was the one who killed Hannah, and there was someone else with him. Where ever she’s going, it has to be somewhere in the building.”
Sullivan looked at Greer. “It is.”
Greer nodded his agreement.
“Where is she?” Natalie asked frantically.
Greer had already started down the hallway by the time Detective Sullivan answered. “Arthur Finley.”
Natalie took off behind Greer and Sullivan as they ran to the elevator.
By the time Fiona’s unsteady legs allowed her to catch up, the elevator was already on its way down to the first floor.
Rather than wait the five minutes it would take for the elevator to make its way back up, Fiona decided to take the stairs. She wasn’t completely confident that her fatigued legs could handle the six flights, but she had to chance it.
Accessing the staircase meant passing Donald Tisdale’s apartment. The thought made her heart skip, but she pressed on. She kept her head down and her ears tuned inward as she came upon it. It’s just another apartment, Fiona. Don’t pay it any attention. But as she walked past, something did catch her attention.
“Hey.” A soft voice from behind the door.
Fiona stopped, despite every cell in her body begging her not to.
“Fiona, is that you?”
The voice sounded like Olivia’s.
That doesn’t mean it is Olivia.
“Fiona, I know it’s you. I can see you through the peephole.”
But what if it is her? You can’t just leave her in there.
Fiona turned to the apartment door. “Olivia?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What are you doing in there?”
“Hiding from my mom. She’s not with you, is she?”
“No.”
“Is anyone else with you?”
“No.”
“Then come in, quick.”
Fiona heard the click of a lock, then saw the door open a few inches.
“Hurry, before they come back.”
Fiona put a hand on the doorknob. What are you doing? You can’t go in there. She pushed the door open a few more inches. No. Go get Detective Sullivan. You can’t be in there by yourself. She pulled the door back toward her. But what if she runs away again? What if someone doesn’t find her this time? It will be your fault, because you turned your back on her. She re-opened the door a few inches and waited. There were no more voices to counsel her.
“Fiona, get in here. What are you doing?”
Wasting time being frightened of nothing, she told herself, knowing it wasn’t true. There was actually an entire world of shit to be frightened of.
But she walked in anyway, hoping beyond all hope that the guardian angel she had thus far refused to acknowledge was walking in with her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
In the nearly three years since it happened, Donald never provided an adequate reason as to why, saying only that the girl’s death was a “tragic accident”. He insisted that he never touched her in any sexual way, and Arthur had no choice but to believe him. But the remaining details of what occurred that day had apparently followed Donald to the grave, a fact that did not make Arthur unhappy. If guilt was the true catalyst for his suicide, it would have been easy to leave behind a confessional where he recounted the sordid details, expressed regret, offered prayers for Hannah and her family, and made the obligatory request for forgiveness. But that didn’t happen. And because of that, Arthur would be able to put the incident and his unfortunate role in it, squarely behind him.
At least that was what he thought.
Donald did indeed leave a confessional. It may not have been a detailed explanation, but it was enough to lead Detectives Greer and Sullivan to Arthur’s doorstep with questions that he was not adequately prepared to answer. And it was all because of one throw-away, and in hindsight, ridiculously stupid comment about Donald possibly keeping artwork somewhere in his apartment.
Arthur was completely unaware of the trap door, and the contents inside of it. If he had been thinking, he would have checked the apartment for anything that could have even remotely incriminated him. But, as had been the case in so many other instances in his life, Arthur wasn’t thinking.
He wasn’t thinking when he agreed to Donald’s unusual request to keep his friendship with Hannah a secret. He wasn’t thinking when he took those weird pictures of the two of them, or when he agreed to be in one himself (what a colossal, life-altering mistake that was). He wasn’t thinking when he agreed to help dispose of Hannah Shelby’s body after Donald thought it more prudent to dismember and scatter its parts rather than face the consequences of his actions. He wasn’t thinking when he decided to protect the false image of Donald as a kind, caring, loyal friend who never bothered a soul.