by Roger Hayden
She brought the paper closer and read the article, completely engrossed.
“Following the tragic murders at the Bechdel estate, Pastor Phillip F. Evans led his congregation in vigil for the victims while urging the town not to fall prey to elements of darkness and fear.”
She lowered the paper, thinking to herself. She pulled the next paper and found herself engrossed immediately by the bold headline on the front page: “Massacre at the Bechdel Estate.”
She didn’t know exactly what the articles would tell her, if anything, but she felt that she was closer to fully knowing what had happened, and why, than before. She stood up in haste with the newspapers in hand and walked out of the room, approaching Hal’s desk.
“Do you have a copy machine here?”
His eyes rose up with their usual uncertainty. He examined her for a moment, hesitant, as she stood, arms clutching a stack of old newspapers.
“Back there.” He pointed.
She turned and saw a large copy machine next to the restrooms, off in the far corner, past the newspaper room.
“Ten cents a copy,” he added.
She set the stack down on the counter and fished through her purse, handing him a few dollar bills for change. He stopped and sighed as his hands slowly went to the cash register and counted her change. She thanked him and went to the copy machine, feeling satisfied, even excited.
After about ten or so minutes of fishing through relevant articles detailing Redwood or the Bechdel mansion, she made her copies, one by one. Once finished, she returned the newspapers to the shelf and strolled through the rest of the library with her copies in hand.
She scanned the bookshelves, looking for anything crime-related in the nonfiction section. She came across a few Redwood travelogue books from independent publishing presses. She wondered if the authors were the locals Hal had mentioned.
Hal looked up from his newspaper as she approached with ten books in hand, plopping them down on the counter. “This’ll be it for today,” she said.
“Well, all right, then,” Hal replied, marking the books with his scanner. She had more than enough to keep her busy. For the time being. She called Curtis to find out where they were when he informed her that Bob Deckers got a call and had to cancel their lunch plans.
“We can still go to the diner if you want,” he said.
“Sure,” she said. “Let me just put these books in the car first.”
“Meet you there,” he said.
She walked out of the library with her curiosity about Redwood piqued. She wanted to go home and start reading more than anything else, but it was a nice day out and a perfect opportunity to see more of the town and look for secrets, perhaps, that existed beyond its cheery façade.
***
Later that evening, Curtis and Mary took a breather in the master bedroom, admiring the furniture arrangement of their dressers, nightstands, tables, and bed. Mary’s bookshelf was intact along with their television stand and flat screen. Their next big step was to unpack the many boxes lying around the room.
“Well, this room’s almost ready to go,” Curtis said, falling back onto the bed. “That leaves us about… fourteen more rooms.”
“There’s no furniture left,” Mary said, pacing barefoot through the room in her shorts and T-shirt. The power was working in their room. From above, their ceiling fan rotated. Two standing lamps in each corner lit the room.
Curtis sat up and grabbed the remote, turning on the TV, and receiving a screen of white static instead. “Oh, I forgot,” he began. “We don’t get cable or Internet until tomorrow.” He turned the TV off and tossed the remote aside.
Mary continued to pace the room with a worried look on her face. “This house is going to need permanent upkeep. Are you really sure we can afford it all?”
Curtis grabbed a notebook lying on the bed and opened it. “I’ve charted out our finances right here for the next year. At minimum. I’ll need clients here soon, but we can make it.”
She felt less than reassured but didn’t want an argument. “What’s the plan for tomorrow then?”
“Well…” Curtis said, thinking to himself. “The painters will be here. The electricians still need to sort out some of this bad wiring. Lawn maintenance still ongoing.” He paused, thinking to himself. “I think that’s it.”
“Who are we kidding?” she said, taking a seat next to him in bed. “We’ll be broke by next week.”
Curtis put his arm around her and laughed. “So how’d it go at the library?”
“I got most of what I needed.” She gazed up, staring at the ceiling. “I still can’t believe it all happened here. All those poor people murdered. That little girl. She must have been terrified.”
Curtis gently tugged at Mary’s ponytail. “Terrible things happen, Mary. But this is our house now, and we have to move on.”
“The man at the library suggested that I go to the office of records near the courthouse,” she said.
“For what?” Curtis asked.
She turned to look at him. “To find out more about this town.”
“I knew it,” Curtis said with a laugh. “You’re planning on writing a book.”
Mary waved him off. “I wouldn’t even know where to start. I told you, I’m not a writer.”
He took her hand, kissed it, and pulled her closer to him, kissing her soft lips. With a heavier embrace to follow, Mary backed up, holding him at bay. “Honey, please. I need to jump into the shower”
“I do too,” he said with a devilish smile.
She fell back into his arms as they kissed with deep-seated passion. His hands caressed her back, moving her shirt up. She broke away and raised her arms as he pulled the fabric off and tossed it on the floor.
Mary awoke in the dead of night, curled up on her side of the bed, lying next to Curtis. The sheets were pulled up halfway, and she felt a dryness in her throat that she could not ignore. The room was dark except for the blueness of the moon, shining through the open windows. The overhead ceiling fan was on, making a strange buzzing noise. The air conditioning unit needed to be replaced, and Curtis had told her to expect a new unit within the week.
Feeling spirited, not to mention thirsty, Mary rose in her nightgown and stepped out of bed, leaving Curtis fast asleep. She wasn’t sure which lights downstairs worked yet, so she picked up a flashlight next to the TV stand and left the room to venture toward the kitchen, where there was plenty of bottled water in their new refrigerator.
She crept down the hallway, flicking a light switch on the wall that did not work. She then turned on her flashlight and continued down the hall. The house was quiet, with nary a disturbance. The noise of their old city seemed like a distant memory. At the moment, she would have done anything to hear a car engine, a siren, or a train. She came to the stairs, hesitant to enter the black abyss below.
She knew when to stray away from danger, especially living in Chicago, but if she was afraid to venture through her own house alone, day or night, she feared that she could never make the transition work.
“Come on. What are you waiting for?” she asked herself in a soft voice.
She pointed the flashlight down the stairs and walked down, step by thick marble step. She reached the foyer and was met with a stack of unpacked boxes sitting all over the room. The boxes cast shadows against the light, which put her on edge. She couldn’t deny a slight pinch of fear coupled with her increasing heart rate. Her mind was playing tricks on her. She was seeing things, shadows that her mind gave life to.
She rushed past the stacked boxes and headed toward the dining room, closing in toward the kitchen. She flicked on the kitchen light switch in haste. A series of long fluorescent bulbs overhead flickered on, much to her relief. Their new stainless-steel refrigerator hummed in the corner next to the dishwasher. She approached the fridge with the intent of grabbing a bottle or two and going back to bed, but the grumbling in her stomach told her otherwise.
She swung the fridge
open and grabbed two water bottles from the middle shelf, setting them on the counter. Inside, the fridge was practically empty. There was half a tuna-salad sandwich Curtis had gotten her from the diner earlier, a loaf of bread, and some cold cuts. Not wanting to spend too much time in the kitchen alone, she grabbed the to-go box and closed the door. Sandwich and water in hand, she left the kitchen, leaving the light on behind her.
As she passed through the dining room, Mary felt more at ease and less afraid of the bare, looming walls where her shadow moved along with her, a companion of sort. She turned the flashlight back on, balancing her sandwich and drinks, and suddenly heard an unmistakable sound coming from the foyer. She slowed her pace and listened. It was the familiar scratching sound from before, coming from another room.
Rodents, she thought.
Pest control had done a sweep of the house earlier in the day, but their work was far from over. The scratching ceased, and she continued on, when another sound stopped her dead in her tracks: the faint cry of an infant. She couldn’t believe it. She had to be dreaming. She slowed again and followed the sound, past the staircase and toward the rooms on the other side of the hall.
The crying grew louder with each step. Shining her flashlight ahead, she looked down and saw that her hands were trembling. As she stopped at the first door to her right, the crying became clearer. There was no door to muffle it. The sound was coming from the living room. She peeked inside, waving the flashlight around. The crying stopped. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up in unison.
What the hell was it?
She bravely moved forward and entered the living room, clutching the bottles of water and to-go box against her chest. Ahead in the corner, just beyond the beam of the flashlight, she saw something huddled in the corner. It looked small and furry. Too large to be a rat or a feline. Too small to be human. The cries resumed. Whatever the thing was, it was most definitely making the noise.
She stopped within five feet of the thing and tried to steady her flashlight. A loud screech from all around startled her, just as the figure came into view, turning its gleaming yellow eyes and fang-ridden face in her direction, hissing. She screamed just in time to see the figure scurry off to the other side of the room, burrowing into a small hole above the baseboard.
The figure had ears, whiskers, and a striped tail. She stumbled back, dropping her food and water, and bolted for the door. She ran without turning back, vaulting up the stairs and into the bedroom, adrenaline flowing through her veins.
She closed the door and threw her back against the wall, breathing heavily. “A raccoon…” she said, exasperated. “That’s what it was. A freaking raccoon.”
A New Discovery
Mary woke the next morning still feeling rattled. Curtis had just walked out of the bathroom in his robe with steamy mist following him as Mary sat up, agitated. “I saw a raccoon last night when I went downstairs,” she said.
Curtis stopped and dried his bushy hair with a towel, curious. “Are you serious?”
Mary flipped her legs over and onto the floor as she moved to the edge of the bed. “It hissed at me and ran into a hole it had burrowed in our wall.”
Curtis’s eyes widened. “You have got to be kidding me. A raccoon in our house?”
“We need to get pest control back out here.”
“I’m on it,” Curtis said, moving to his phone on his dresser.
“There was more, Curtis,” she said, stopping him. “I heard an infant crying. Clear as day.”
Curtis shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“Downstairs, right before I saw the raccoon, I heard this crying noise. I’m pretty sure it was a baby.”
“Well, there’s not much pest control can do about that,” Curtis said.
“I’m serious!”
Concerned, Curtis approached her and sat on the bed. “I’m sorry that happened to you. It was late, and you were probably hearing things.”
She opened her mouth, prepared to object, when he cut her off.
“Listen. We’ll set up some traps and get rid of any rodents still remaining in this house. I promise.”
“It’s not just the raccoon. I’m getting strange vibes from this place, and I want to find out what it all means.”
Curtis took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m not saying that I don’t believe you. I just think your nerves are a little shot with everything going on. That’s why I want you to relax today.”
“I’m not crazy. I know what I heard.”
Curtis laughed and rose from the bed, standing in the sunlight. “I never said that. Just take it easy, please. For your sake and mine.”
Mary nodded. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Mark my words.”
“I think you should. You have an excellent intuition.”
“This one woman in town yesterday knew about us moving into this house,” she said. “She looked rough. She told me that we made a terrible mistake. How did she know anything about me?”
Curtis shrugged. “It’s a small town.” He turned to his dresser and then spun around. “Speaking of which, we’ve been invited to a barbecue next Sunday at the church.”
“How’d you hear about that?” Mary asked.
Curtis put on shorts and a T-shirt, checking himself in the mirror angled on top of the nightstand. “I met someone at the diner before you arrived. He’s the pastor at the church we passed.” He thought for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “Pastor Phil was his name.”
“I met him too,” Mary said. “He approached me on the street. Seemed like he already knew who I was. Same with you.”
“I admit, he did seem very friendly and outgoing.
Maybe too much?”
“He’s been living here since the seventies. Can you believe that?” Mary said.
Curtis turned with a shrug. “From what I hear, once people move to Redwood, they don’t want to go anywhere else.”
“I’m sure they don’t,” Mary said softly.
Curtis moved toward the door, ready to get started with his day. “Plenty of warm water left in the shower,” he said. He paused, hand on the doorknob, and turned back to Mary. “So are you in for next Sunday?”
“The barbecue?”
“Yeah. You said so yourself that we should go to church more often.”
Mary arched a brow. “And I’m sure this has nothing to do with you fishing for prospective clients.”
“It has everything to do with that,” Curtis said with a laugh. “I’ve got to try to make a living somehow.”
Mary nodded. “Sure. Next Sunday. Let’s do it.”
Curtis seemed happy and said he had work to do, leaving Mary in the room as he left. She looked around their nearly setup master bedroom, wondering exactly how she was going to spend the day. It was Monday, and she expected more of the same—landscapers, roofers, movers, and all the like, working in unison. Granted, they were there to help Mary and Curtis fix their dream house, but at the moment, she had never felt so alone.
Mary showered and went downstairs dressed in her sneakers, pink sleeveless button-down shirt, and jean shorts, just in time to see Curtis talking with the pest-control team in the foyer. There were two men, lanky and young-looking, with red polo shirts and hats. They nodded as Curtis pointed out the place and explained to them what happened to Mary. He then stopped and looked up as she came down the stairs.
“Ah, there she is,” Curtis said. “Honey, could you kindly show these gentlemen where you saw the raccoon last night?”
“My pleasure,” she said, signaling to the hall at their right. “This way.”
The two men thanked Curtis and followed Mary as she led them to the living room. It was empty, just as before, and less ominous in the daytime. Two bottles of water lay on the floor along with a to-go box. Mary carefully picked up the box and saw that the sandwich was still inside. Regardless, it was going into the garbage.
She then went to the far corner of the room across the hardwo
od floor, to the place where she had seen the raccoon. As expected, there were tiny scratch marks on the wall, clear as day.
“Right there,” she said, pointing. “That’s where I saw it last night.”
The pest-control team eyed the wall, hands on their chins, as Mary went across to the other side of the room. “It ran over here and crawled back into the wall.” She stopped at a hole near the baseboard, about five inches wide. She couldn’t say how the raccoon squeezed in there so quickly, but the hole was evidence enough.
The men approached as the taller one with a goatee shined his flashlight inside the hole. “Damn,” he said. “We can get in there, but it’s gonna be tricky.”
“Whatever you have to do,” she said. “This particular raccoon seemed very mean. I don’t want to mess around.”
The two men turned and looked at each other. The goateed man scratched his head and spoke with careful consideration. “We have a bunch of traps in our van. Of course, we can try to lure it out instead of banging up your wall, cutting a hole…”
“She could have babies, Earl,” the other man said. “It’s best to take a look.”
“Fine,” the goateed man said. He then looked at Mary. “That okay with you?”
Mary thought of Curtis and all the effort and money they were putting into fixing the place up. “Keep the destruction to a minimum please.” Though she was eager for them to tear into the wall and get whatever was living inside of there out.
Earl looked up, scanning the room. “It’s a big house, ma’am, but we’ll try our best. No telling where it’s at. Could be a maze of tunnels in these here walls.”
They left the room as Mary paced around the center of the floor, stricken with worry. The infant cries were coming back to her. There was no way that any kind of animal could have made a noise so distinctive. It was yet another strange, unexplained occurrence. She walked to the living room window, looking outside at the front courtyard.
Curtis was by the empty fountain, talking with some contractors. The pest-control team was at their red van, pulling out equipment. Earl had a crowbar in hand and some kind of snare. She assumed that was how they were going to do it. She turned and walked back to the hole on the other side of the room. The faded and stained beige walls needed a good painting.
