by Jack Hunt
It was some scene inside a hospital. Some guy was in in bed looking as though he had been in a car accident. A woman with perfect hair and teeth sat at his side holding his hand.
“David, I love you. It was always you. I shouldn’t have let you go.”
Dump her ass, David, I muttered.
I scoffed at how stupid it was. Like what kind of person watched this crap? I continued to pile chips in between my sandwich before pressing down on them firmly with both hands. I pressed again forcing it altogether. At the very moment I pushed down the second time, I felt it again. A wave pushed me to the side. What the hell is that? At first I thought that perhaps we’d left a window open and the wind was blowing hard. But it didn’t feel like that. Besides, all the windows were closed and outside the trees were barely moving. I picked up the sandwich and strolled over to the window. I peeked out at the neighborhood but everything seemed quiet.
Mr. Eckhart, a neighbor four doors down from our house, was watering his plants. The guy practically lived outside. And if you got too close to his yard he wouldn’t think twice about yelling at you. Sixty and as deaf as a coot, it didn’t matter that he had the best yard on the cul-de-sac. He still moaned about it not looking green enough. I briefly compared it to ours, which resembled something out of the apocalypse. Our grass was yellow, almost non-existent. Burnt by the sun, as neither my mother nor I had time to maintain it.
I shrugged off the weird feeling and notched it up to feeling tired, perhaps I was coming down with something. I’d once got this really bad ear infection and it threw my balance completely off. There were moments I felt as if I was falling but in reality I was fine.
I spent the next hour watching a movie. At the end I switched it off and shook off all the chips that were scattered over me. I passed the window at the side of our house that overlooked our new neighbor. Since he moved in, his curtains were always drawn. I looked at his yard. He had a pool that I used to use when Mr. Jacobs lived there. He didn’t mind, most of the time he wasn’t even aware of what day it was.
Now it looked green and unkempt. Perhaps he would get it operational in a few weeks.
As I returned to my room to get my phone and contact Eric, I glanced at my father’s study. The door was partially open. I hadn’t been in there since he’d died. My father, Bryan Flynn, had always lived his life at arm’s length from my mother and myself. His priorities were always clear to us. Work came first, then us. Unlike other families who might have held a grudge, I didn’t hold it against him, and neither did my mother. He was the kind of man that when we did get his attention, he was fully present with us. His mind was not elsewhere. He didn’t stare down at his phone as if expecting a call and he didn’t harp on about his struggles. But when he was focused on work, we knew not to talk to him. If he wasn’t out on the road he was locked inside his study talking to clients on the phone. I never interrupted him. My mother bought him a sign for his door that read, Man Cave. In many ways that’s what it was. The one place he retreated to often. The door was usually locked; on the few times it wasn’t he nearly blew his top when I walked in there. So I rarely went in. Now as I stood at the door, I felt the same way as I did when he was alive. A sense that I shouldn’t open the door.
I pushed it open and peered inside before entering. A deep sense of loss washed over me. “I wish you were here, Dad,” I muttered. His study was like any other. Books to do with military, law enforcement and sales lined the walls. A thick mahogany desk was at one end. A pile of papers was stacked on one side of the desk. His laptop in the middle, still untouched. Since his death I hadn’t seen my mother go in there but with the door partially open I did wonder. It still smelled of him. He wore a distinct aftershave that even when he wasn’t home I could still smell if I closed my eyes. He never changed it. It was always the same. That was the thing about him. He rarely changed his routine. He was a man of consistency. He liked to eat out at a certain style of restaurant, listen to a specific style of music and wear only one brand of cologne.
I gazed around and heard his voice. Distant memories. That’s all we had left. I considered going through his belongings but decided not to. I don’t know what I was more afraid of, unearthing things I didn’t know about him, or the pain that I had pushed down inside me.
I closed the door and returned to my room feeling the ache of loss. I was bringing up Eric’s number when I felt it for the third time. This time I was standing by my window when it happened. In that instant as my head turned towards my neighbor’s home and that wave hit me, I saw something. From beyond the curtains, at the far edges I saw a glow. It didn’t linger long but long enough that I immediately remembered it.
It was the same pale blue glow I had seen when the man disappeared after shooting my father. I blinked hard but by then there was no light emanating from beyond his curtains. It was just dark and ordinary. A cold jolt of fear shot through me. I stepped back from my window and tried to get a hold of myself. Was I seeing things? Perhaps I was ill?
Standing there in the quiet of my room, I was startled by the sound of the phone in my hand. I glanced down and saw my mother’s number on the caller ID. She was checking in on me. I clicked accept and walked back towards the window in the hope that I might see something else.
“So, how are things coming along? Any interviews lined up?”
My eyes drifted from window to window on my neighbor’s home. What the hell was going on over there?
“Alex.”
“Um. Right. No. It’s only been a few days since I started applying. These things don’t happen overnight.”
“I hope you’re not wasting time. Do me a favor, clean up a little.”
I stared back inside my room that had multiple bowls, cups and empty bags of chips laying all over the place. They had accumulated over the past few days. I had been meaning to clean up but it had kind of got away from me. At least that’s what I had told myself. As the call ended I remained at the window, waiting for another wave but it didn’t happen. I must have spent close to half an hour staring at my neighbor’s house in the hope I would see or feel something but there was nothing.
I thought I was beginning to lose my mind. The stress of the past three years bore down on me as I texted Eric.
Can you come over tonight? My mother is going all ape shit on me and I’m kinda going stir crazy filling out job applications. I just need a break from it.
Yeah, you want me to bring some beers?
Nah I have some here.
He said he was in the middle of a class but would phone me after. He shot over a photo of the back of Kelly Evans’s head.
You really should call her, dude, she’s been asking about you.
What did you tell her?
That you are home with some weird penis disease.
I palmed my face. The truth was, he probably had told her that. Eric had a habit of opening his mouth first and thinking later.
Kelly Evans lived on the same street as me. We’d grown up together, gone to the same school, returned home on the same bus and attended the same university but that was about the extent of what we shared.
Well, there was the one time when I was ten that my mother had invited her over to a BBQ but we were too young then. Besides, back then I was barely about to summon more than a smile, a hello or a wave. Not much had changed in eleven years. Several times I had thought about asking her out but it always the same. I’d get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that the moment I asked her, she would say no or one of her friends would overhear and laugh. It was odd because none of that happened with other girls I’d been out with. And I dated my fair share. It was just her. And for the life of me I couldn’t put my finger on why. Of course, there was the fact that she was extensively easy on the eyes, with dark hair and a body that could turn heads.
What would I say? I pictured in my head how the conversation would go.
“So, I haven’t seen you around much.”
“Yeah, that’s becaus
e I dropped out of the university.”
“Ah, too bad. Are you still going for the police?”
“No, in fact I just got laid off.”
Yeah, not exactly stellar boyfriend material.
I was about to text him back when another one came through. This time however it wasn’t from Eric but his teacher.
Mr. Flynn, please don’t interrupt my student when he’s in class. He will contact you later.
That was the second time this week that had happened. I blew out my cheeks and cast another glance out the window after which I spent the next hour tidying up my room, stacking dishes and cleaning up the living room.
As I finished taking up another load of laundry and dumping it all over the bed so I could begin putting it away, something happened that changed the course of what I had in mind for the future. I didn’t know it then but my life was about to be upended. Closing the drawer and reaching for a shirt, out the corner of my eye I saw the same flash, though this time the curtain moved with the wave. Now I could see directly into my neighbor’s room on the lower floor. From where I stood the room was dark, but when the pale blue glow occurred for the final time, I saw it. One moment my neighbor was standing in the middle of the room, the next he was gone.
Just as it occurred on the day my father died. I couldn’t peel my eyes away. My heart pounded in my chest. I don’t think I even blinked. A second, maybe ten, or twenty later, he reappeared. I say that he reappeared because that’s the only explanation I could give to describe what was not there but then was. He didn’t walk into the room, or even step out from behind an object. Like witnessing heat waves on a summer’s day, he came into view.
Still holding my phone, my hand was trembling as my logical mind tried to make sense of what I had just seen. Then, as if sensing that he was being watched, my neighbor turned his head sharply and looked directly up at me. I ducked down but it was too late.
He’d seen me.
Chapter 3
What the hell had I witnessed? In twenty-one years I could only recall one time when I was nervous of the chime of a doorbell, or a phone ringing. When I was ten years of age my pals were hanging outside a local school when a few of them decided to climb on top of the building and break a window. Being cautious and having a cop as a father, I chose to remain outside the fence. However, when someone called the police and I saw the cruiser roll up to the school, I did what any kid would do when fearful. I ran. All of us did. The cop managed to catch two of my friends and I was certain that I would hear the doorbell ring or receive a phone call that night from the police. I never but that didn’t stop me from feeling as scared as hell.
That’s exactly how I felt now, except this time I was home alone. My mother wasn’t going to be home for another three hours. Every second that ticked over, I imagined I would hear a knock at the door. I crawled across the floor towards my bedroom door and scrambled down the stairs. I wasn’t sure what to do. Leave the house or phone the police? It’s not like my neighbor had committed a crime, and yet I had witnessed something that defied logic. My brain ran up against the wall of its own limitations. It had reached a point where it had nothing to compare except that fateful day outside the firing range.
Was he the same person I had seen? Had he killed my father? Was he back to finish the job? No, impossible. It had been three years. The events of that day replayed in my mind. I was bordering on a whole new level of paranoia. Seated on the floor in the kitchen with a large carving knife in my hand I willed myself to breathe before I tried to find a reasonable explanation.
Perhaps it was an optical illusion. Maybe he was a photographer? It was possible that it was nothing more than a camera flash, or a video gimmick. That’s it. My mind started searching for any plausible reason for what I had seen. The best I could come up with was that he earned his living creating YouTube videos. It was all the craze nowadays; folks setting up green screens, creating their own effects and doing it all from the comfort of home.
I gripped the handle of the knife tighter.
No, I knew what I had seen even if I couldn’t explain it.
It was exactly the same thing as on the day my father was shot.
I remained in the kitchen holding that knife for a little over an hour. The phone rang and I didn’t even get up to see who it was. When I eventually came to my senses I told myself to stop acting like a pussy. I went back upstairs and approached the window. The curtains were now drawn tight. I scanned the others as well as the backyard but no one was there.
When my mother finally returned home from work, I was eager to tell her what I’d seen but with everything that had occurred over the past few days I figured it was best that I didn’t add to her stress level. It didn’t help that she came in looking overwhelmed every day.
“I brought home dinner. I can’t stay long. I have two houses to close and one buyer who wants to pull out. I’m going to be tied up until at least ten tonight.”
“Anything I can give you a hand with?” I asked as she downed a tall glass of water and spent a few minutes decompressing from a busy day.
“Cut the chicken up, I’m going to take mine with me.”
“Hey um, have you seen the neighbor?”
“Who?”
“The new one.”
“I’m lucky if I see my own house, Alex. Why?”
“Oh nothing. It’s just his curtains are always closed and I haven’t seen him step outside since the day he moved in.”
“No, he does. I have seen him out a few times, usually late at night after you’ve gone to work. Around nine o’clock. I haven’t bumped into him yet but you know how people are. Some are friendly, others like to keep to themselves.”
She tossed a few strips of chicken in her mouth, then kissed me on the top of the head.
“Listen, I’m sorry about what I said earlier. You know, with your father.”
“It’s okay.”
She studied my face. “I just want you to do well.”
I nodded as I piled food on my plate and tried to forget about the day’s strange event. My mother left the house just before seven that evening. Eric arrived fifteen minutes later. I heard his vehicle before I saw him. He had one of these annoying Dukes of Hazzard horns that he would blare every time he showed up to places. It pissed the neighbors off immensely.
He didn’t bang on the door like anyone else. No, he would just waltz in and then make a beeline for the fridge. He treated our home like it was his own to the point that my own mother treated him like a second son.
“Dude, you are never going to believe this.”
He fished around in the fridge while I nursed a cup of coffee.
“Eric.”
Before I could get a word in edgewise he was yakking about two Japanese students that had just started at the university.
“They’re twins. Seriously dude, you need to check ’em out.”
With a beer in hand that he’d snagged from the fridge he leaned over the couch and dropped his phone in my lap. Eric slid into the La-Z-Boy chair and popped the recliner back. He was a scrawny guy who looked as if he hadn’t eaten in forever. It wasn’t that he didn’t eat well. Heck, our almost empty fridge was proof of that. But he had a small frame. He’d emigrated to the USA from Australia when he was ten, and with both of his parents having a thick Australian accent, he never lost his. He was the kind of guy who had little trouble getting the ladies with his flyaway blond hair and chiseled surfer boy looks. But if people were to judge him on looks alone they would see very little of who he really was. He was as smart as they came. A real techno whiz. A few of his instructors had remarked that if he continued to keep up his grades, he’d stand a good chance of getting recruited by NASA as an engineer. I was completely the opposite.
“So? What do you think? I managed to get phone numbers for these two honeys. What about we give them a call and have them swing by?”
“Yeah, maybe later. Listen, I gotta tell you something.”
“Oh god
, dude, does this involve cyber sex? You really need to get out more.”
“No, you idiot. Let me show you something.”
I led him upstairs to my room and brought him over to the window.
“You remember me telling you about what I saw the day my father was murdered?”
Eric wasn’t paying attention, he was still ogling some of the photos he’d taken of the twins and texting one of them.
“You know, that pale blue light. The way the guy disappeared.”
“Uh huh,” he said with his head down.
I placed my hand over the phone and he looked up. “Dude.”
“I saw it. Today. Coming from my neighbor’s window.”
He snorted then brought two fingers up to his mouth as though he was smoking weed. “I think someone’s been smoking too much of the Mary Jane. Which reminds me. Have you got any?”
I shook my head. “No, I swear. Not only that, I saw him blink out of existence and then back again.”
Eric looked at the window I was pointing to. The curtains were closed.
“Alex, I know you went through some serious shit losing your old man but come on.”
“I’m not lying.”
He got up and moved across the room to where I kept my PS4. He slumped down in my chair and started playing. “Hey, you think I can borrow a few of your games?”
I sighed. He wasn’t listening.
And like that, the conversation was over. I could tell he didn’t want to get into it but I wanted answers. I knew what I’d seen; I just needed to know what I was dealing with.
“Look, I’m thinking of going over there.”
He let out a laugh while twisting the game controller around. “And doing what, playing peeping Tom?”
“Going in and seeing what I can find.”
He cast a glance at me and shook his head. “Alex, you are finally out of your mind.”
“I need to know.”
Eric tossed the game controller down, swiveled around in his seat and took a swig from the beer can. “And breaking in to your neighbor’s house is the answer? Listen, I’m all for helping you but not if it means I end up spending a night in jail. Some of us want to graduate.”