All around him the open fields expanded without limit. There were scarcely any trees to be found, and there were no buildings aside from the shack visible from where he stood. He felt himself standing on an island in the middle of a vast, green ocean, such was their isolation.
Dylan and Reggie walked out of the shack, yawning and stretching loudly. They mumbled to one another about how miserably they'd slept, and carried their things out to their respective cars. Dylan snapped his fingers in Kenji's direction and motioned to the Honda. “You ready to go?”
Kenji took in another lungful of the cold air and had one last look around the property. There was nothing more to be done. He'd stayed the night in this abandoned shack, had done a bit of research into the identity of the woman in the recording, but as he began for the Honda he had to ask himself what the point of it all had been. He felt he'd been led to the place, and had played host to a nebulous dread all the while. Now that he was on the verge of leaving, he didn't feel any closer to an answer. The previous twenty-four hours hadn't brought him to the heart of this strange occurrence. It'd only burdened him with more questions.
Reggie shook their hands and the three of them traded contact information. “I'll let y'all know if I find anything else about this, but if we're being honest, I don't plan to look so hard.” Reggie grinned for the first time all morning. “Gonna make the drive back to St. Paul and hit the shower. Then I'm going to sleep till the cows come home.”
“Sounds like a plan,” replied Dylan. He fumbled with his keys, throwing his bag into the back and dropping down into the driver's seat. “Was nice meeting you, Reggie.” For some reason, Dylan seemed in a hurry to leave. This was more than mere impatience; a few times since walking to the car he'd looked out in the direction of the shack furtively, the terrified look Kenji had glimpsed in him earlier that morning suddenly resurfacing.
“Nice to meet you, Reggie,” said Kenji with a nod. “Drive safe.”
Reggie stepped forward. “One last thing,” he added. “That, uh, phone number we pulled up last night. For the friend to this Agnes woman? Mind if I have it?” He smiled sheepishly. “Just in case, you know.”
Kenji nodded and pulled the sheet of paper with the phone number on it out of his notebook. He copied it down a second time and tore it off, handing Reggie the scrawl.
“Appreciate it, young man,” was Reggie's reply as he tucked it into his breast pocket and started for the driver's side of his LeSabre. With a little wave, Reggie put the key in the ignition, backed out and disappeared down the road in the direction of town. Kenji watched the little olive green car vanish into the distance before getting into the Honda.
“You ready now?” asked Dylan, his hands fidgeting atop the steering wheel. His agitation hadn't lessened; his jaw was tensed, his eyes firmed up into a steely gaze through the windshield. “I want to get out of here.”
Kenji closed his door and put on his seatbelt. Without another word, Dylan started up the car and began pulling out at high speed. “What's gotten into you, man?”
Dylan gulped, then said nothing. Once they'd backed out onto the main road, he wheeled around and took off in the same direction Reggie had gone. After a while, he finally muttered, “I wish we'd never come out here.”
Something caught Kenji's notice as they drove away from the place. For a distance of at least a couple miles, Dylan's gaze spent more time fixed in the rearview than it did on the road ahead. This fixation with the rearview ended once they crossed into town, but even as they started onto the highway, Dylan would sometimes stare as if he expected something to materialize in the little-tread road behind them.
Kenji suggested they stop at a small restaurant for breakfast before they dove into the seven-hour drive, but Dylan would have none of it. He drove for almost two hours before finally yielding to his empty stomach and pulling into a McDonald's for coffee. He'd seldom spoken, gripping the wheel and cruising at a generous clip some fifteen miles over the speed limit.
Finally, in the McDonald's parking lot, while Kenji worked over a breakfast sandwich, Dylan showed signs of a sluggish return to his usual demeanor. He slurped his coffee and then stirred at it pensively. Reclining in his seat, he began with a hint of nervousness in his voice. “You know, it's really strange, but...” He shook his head, seeming to reconsider, but then pressed on. Whatever he had to say it was something he simply couldn't hold back any longer. “Last night? When we were, you know, sleeping in that... the shack? I woke up once or twice. It must've been pretty late at night. I didn't check the time or anything, but I, uh...” Another sip of coffee steadied his shaking hand. Not trusting his grip, he set it into the cup holder and then folded his hands in his lap. “I looked out the window, and in the moonlight, I thought I saw someone looking at me. Looking at us. The moon was damn bright, and I could've sworn there was someone standing outside, looking through the window into the shack.” He wore a smile as he related this, but the trembling of his lips revealed it to be anything but a joke.
Kenji paused in his chewing. Staring through the windshield, he brought his coke to his lips but didn't take a sip. “Must've been a nightmare or something...” He was looking for something he could say that might comfort Dylan. The fact that the morning light couldn't altogether help him overcome his fear was telling, however.
“Yeah, of course,” declared Dylan after a pause. “It was a dream, yeah... Had to have been.” He rifled through the bag of food aggressively, drawing out a hash brown and eating it a a few bites. “Thing is, though... in my, uh... dream, the person in the window, looking at us as we slept, well... it looked just like that chick in the video, Agnes.” He gave a brief titter, then fell silent.
“Pretty crazy,” was all Kenji thought to offer in reply. If he closed his eyes, he could clearly picture that dusty shack they'd spent the night in. He could remember where everything was situated, where he'd slept, where the window was. And if he focused hard on the scene, he could paint in the profile of that mysterious woman, Agnes Pasztor, leering at the three of them from the moonlit window.
Kenji sucked in so much soda his stomach started to hurt. “Ready to head out?”
Dylan nodded and the car rattled back to life.
Except to top off the gas, they didn't stop again till they reached the UW-Madison campus later that evening.
SIXTEEN
A week came and went. To Kenji's mind, it was fascinating just how much could change in a week, and yet, how much stayed the same. Returning to their empty campus, the two of them had more or less resumed their aimless schedule. Binging on Netflix, visiting the near-empty restaurants and cafes near campus and generally frittering away their time was all they could think to do. In that week, Kenji spoke to his parents on the phone no less than three times, each conversation involving some lie on his part, wherein he'd claim to be studying day and night in anticipation of his new classes. He didn't mention the trip he and Dylan had taken to Akeley, of course.
The mood was gloomy, and Dylan didn't much leave his bed for the first couple of days after their return to campus. He spent a lot of time knotted in the bedclothes, playing mindless games on his phone and listening to music. When hunger finally drew him out of bed, he'd eat whatever he could get his hands on, but he'd do so with a good deal less gusto than usual.
In the past week, the two of them hadn't spoken of their trip to the shack once. They hadn't heard from Reggie, either; something that Kenji figured was a good thing. His thoughts had begun to wander from the strange journey, from the character of Agnes Pasztor and the cryptic message she'd somehow embedded in media, almost as though his subconscious mind sought to drive out all memories of his involvement.
Now and then he considered calling up Mara Antall. The woman who'd posted the missing person's report on a social media website, and was a friend of Agnes', was likely the only lead they could follow if they desired to wade any deeper into this bizarre chain of events. But every time he flipped to the ha
nd-written phone number in his notebook, he thought better of it. Some little voice in the back of his head would gently advise him not to, and he'd drop it. Better not. No telling what might come of that.
***
No matter what he did, Reggie Cash couldn't seem to sleep.
Oh, he'd manage just enough shuteye to function during the day. But when the sun set and he found himself laying in his queen sized bed alone, beneath the warm, flannel sheets he used in winter, sleep proved elusive.
But there was more.
Songs, television, movies were all ruined for him. He'd long decided to keep his television and stereo off. Once that week, while out for lunch, he'd asked the manager of the restaurant to shut off the music playing overhead, citing some specious headache.
He'd had no other choice. That was the only way to keep her voice out of his head.
In every song, every bit of film, Reggie was finding bits of Agnes Pasztor. His favorite tunes carried with them dreadful undercurrents that suggested the breathy tones of her voice. Films and television shows showcased flickering figures in his periphery that he could not help but take as same. He couldn't enjoy those usual pleasures any longer, and his life was made miserable for it. Fear gripped him whenever he left his home; more and more, passersby took the look of that tall, pale woman with the jet black hair. The ordinarily social Reggie was turning down invitations from friends and leaving his house less and less.
That he was being urged on by something outside of himself was painfully clear. God, the devil, or Agnes Pasztor herself-- and he couldn't be altogether certain that she wasn't some mixture of the former two-- wanted him to dig deeper. He could think of no other reason why his dreams should be so haunted by the specter of those coordinates she'd uttered in the documentary. He'd memorized those coordinates now. Reggie couldn't help but think about them with great frequency till their utterance became a very simple thing for him. Now and then, in those quiet moments when his thoughts were inclined to wander, he'd find himself mumbling them.
EN17DA43TU85
It was only by one avenue that Reggie could conceive of progress being made, and that was in reaching out to this Mara Antall, the woman who'd claimed to be a friend of Agnes'. Maybe, by doing so, he'd be able to put a stop to the dreams, to the visions that encroached upon him whenever he took in a film or set foot in a crowded place.
It was an overcast morning, nearly a week since he'd returned from the shack in Akeley, when he finally decided to make the call. Unfolding the slip of paper Kenji had given him, he descended into his recliner and slowly dialed the number. It was after three rings that a quiet, hesitant answer came.
“Hello?” The voice was uncertain, faint.
“Hello, is this Mara Antall?” Reggie waited a beat before continuing. “I'm looking to speak to a miss Mara Antall in regards to a missing person's notice.”
The change in the speaker's demeanor was clear from the very first. Her replies came in clearer, seemed sunnier from here on out. “Oh, yes. I am Mara Antall.” Her voice was touched by a vague accent that was hard to place. Reggie recalled reading that Agnes was Hungarian and figured her friend, Mara, was the same.
“My name is Reggie Cash, and I was hoping that I might be able to speak to you about this friend of yours, Agnes Pasztor.” He cleared his throat, then added, “In-person.”
“That's no problem,” replied Mara. Her openness to meeting with a perfect stranger was a bit surprising to Reggie. He'd half-expected to meet some kind of resistance but took her willingness as desperation.
“I noticed your area code is the same as mine. I don't suppose you're living in St. Paul, are you?” Reggie took a pen and prepared to jot down any details the woman had to give him.
“Yes, in fact. I live on Thurber street, just outside of downtown St. Paul. Do you know it?”
Reggie furrowed his brow, conjuring up a mental map of the city. “Yes, I do.”
Mara supplied him with an address to her apartment without the least hesitation and assured him any time was fine. She proved amicable to the idea of meeting the next day, around noon.
Reggie remained in his recliner long after the plans were laid and he'd hung up the phone. This woman, though seemingly polite, hadn't batted an eyelash at meeting with him out of the blue. It rubbed him the wrong way, but he couldn't say why. She'd placed the notice on social media, supposedly hadn't seen her friend Agnes in about ten years. It wasn't hard to believe that she'd be desperate to reconnect with her. But her complete willingness to meet with him had been a little unexpected.
Prior to hanging up, Mara had asked him, with not a little excitement, whether he knew where Agnes was. “Have you found her? I haven't seen her in ten years. If you know where she is, I'd love to know.”
“No,” Reggie had replied, chuckling. “I am sorry about that. I don't know where she is, however... I was hoping you might be willing to clear something up for me.” He'd paused. “I'm pretty sure it has something to do with her. Anyhow, I'll see you tomorrow at noon?”
“Very well,” had been her only reply before the line went dead.
Reggie fixed himself a warm glass of milk and settled into bed. That night, he rested more peacefully than he had in some time, almost as though the forces of the universe were pleased with the course of action he'd chosen.
SEVENTEEN
Mara Antall was nothing at all like what Reggie had expected.
Pulling up to her apartment building, which was in a lower rent area and bustling with rough-looking types, Reggie stepped out of his LeSabre and started for the main entrance, only to be met half-way by the hunched, shawl-wearing figure of Mara Antall. He knew it was her before she'd even introduced herself. Standing a touch over five feet tall, she had roughly-drawn, severe features; deep-set eyes, a crooked nose and thin lips that seemed never to have worn a smile. She appeared a woman of fifty, but certain characteristics bespoke a higher tally of years, such as the coarseness of her grey hair.
Mara wore a flowing headscarf made of red silk, and had a cream-colored shawl draped over her slight shoulders. The dress she wore, a loud combination of blues and browns, flowed just behind her as she walked, reaching all the way down to her ankles. She wore, too, loads of jewelry. Her earrings weighed down her ears, large golden hoops of no little thickness; and her wrists appeared similarly clad, in gaudy bangles. Her fingers, looking knotted like fibrous little root vegetables, bore colorful rings.
The sharp-dressed Reggie, who'd opted for a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, had to stifle a grin as he approached her. She looked rather eccentric, precisely like what he and his family would have referred to as a gypsy in days passed. The air around Mara was haunted by a thick, sweet-smelling perfume. He reached out, offering to shake, but she did not take his hand. She gave him a slight smile, very obviously a formality, and then held the shawl tightly while ambling out the door. “There is a small cafe around the corner. Shall we have some tea?”
“Certainly,” replied Reggie. He was going to offer to drive the two of them over, but Mara was shuffling along the cracked sidewalk towards their destination before he could say anything more.
A silent, five-minute walk saw the two of them stepping into a small, empty cafe. Mara, apparently a friend of the owner's, ordered two cups of hot tea in a language Reggie had never heard, and seated herself at a table near the front window. Looking out at the street, she waited for Reggie to join her. When the tea was delivered, she gave it a stir but didn't once take a sip.
“Thank you for the tea,” began Reggie, tasting it. It wasn't like any other tea he'd ever had; lemony, but with a spicy sort of kick. He didn't much like it, but took a pull from the tea cup now and then so as not to appear rude.
“Mr. Cash,” she said, straightening one of her earrings, “what is it you wish to know about my friend, Agnes?” Her eyes met his for an instant, and in them Reggie found a hardness like steel.
This was the kind of thing he'd
have to go about discussing carefully. To share the wrong details up front, or worse, to spill his guts completely, would only make him look crazy. He held the tea cup in his hands and allowed the warmth to seep into his palms while searching for the right way to begin. “Some acquaintances of mine were recently made aware of Agnes' disappearance.”
She arched a thin, grey brow, leaning forward. Her pinched expression momentarily gave way as a bolt of something like excitement passed over her. “You mean to say you've found her?”
Reggie smiled. “No, no... it's like I told you over the phone. We haven't found her. But we... there were some things that led us to your posting. Certain coincidences that may be related to her, well...” He took a gulp of tea and tried to find the words.
Before he could continue however, Mara was wagging a long, crooked finger at him. The afternoon sun was caught in the gleam of one of her golden rings as she replied. “In this world, there are no coincidences.”
Reggie nodded. “Right... Well, I was just hoping to learn more about her. If I should find something out, I'd be happy to let you know, but at the moment, you see, I'm curious about how this relates to some other things...”
Mara studied him with a curious, firm expression, but didn't ask for an explanation. Reggie had already admitted that he didn't know anything about Agnes' whereabouts. She wasn't going to press the matter any further. “Agnes and I were like sisters,” she began. We used to share a house with a number of other Hungarian immigrants.” Then, with a touch of reticence, she added, “Though, Agnes moved out of there. She'd grown apart from the others, left suddenly, without warning.”
“I see.” Reggie couldn't think of anything else to say at this point. “Uh... when did she move out?”
Transmission: A Supernatural Thriller Page 8