by Hunter Shea
“Maybe we should go back inside.”
She laid a hand on Andrew’s taut shoulder. He swept the light beam around the yard. They could barely see the fire pit, and that was only ten or so yards from the porch.
Something was still walking out there.
Cri-crack. Cri-crack.
“I can’t see anything,” Andrew said.
It has to be right in front of us!
The crunching of leaves and twigs never stopped, always just out of the light’s reach, circling them like a shark.
“We need to go back inside, right now,” Kate said, digging her nails into his arm.
“Who’s out there?” Andrew shouted.
The walking stopped.
As did all of the night sounds. It was if a voice from on high had said, “Shush,” silencing every cricket and critter mid-raucous.
“Whoa,” Andrew whispered, the tendrils of his breath spiraling into the black.
Kate’s heart plummeted into her stomach. The flesh at the back of her neck bunched up and felt alive with creepy-crawlies.
Andrew kept the light pointed at a particular spot, as if he was awaiting whatever was out there to step into the spotlight.
“Andrew.”
She tugged on his sleeve, but he didn’t budge. He stood there, frozen, waiting, barely breathing.
“Andrew!”
This time she wasn’t taking no for an answer. She pulled Andrew with all her might back into the living room. The force of her yank on his shirt seemed to snap him out of the strange spell that had come over him. Slipping one arm around her waist, he slid the door shut so hard, she was afraid the glass would shatter. The lock snapped back in place with a satisfying click.
Feeling naked and exposed, Kate pulled the chain to close the blinds on the door.
Kate’s heart hurt. The pain radiated to her shoulders, stabbing her temples with pincers. She had to calm down.
The thing out there had stopped when Andrew spoke.
Like it understood him.
Which meant it wasn’t an it, but a who.
“Did you see anything?” she asked Andrew breathlessly.
“No. The flashlight on this thing sucks.”
He helped her sit in the chair and moved it, and her, away from the doors.
Kate felt as if she were going to shake apart. It was hard to catch her breath. “What do we do?”
Andrew’s eyes darted around the cottage. He ran to the kitchen and yanked the window closed. He then double-checked the lock on the front door before disappearing into the bedroom, where she heard another window bang shut.
When he came back to the living room, he was holding an ax handle.
“Where did you find that?”
“In the supply closet. It’s missing the most important part, but it’s the best we have.”
He was about to sit on the bed next to her when there was a tremendous crash, the impact on the house so brutal that the framed picture of a bowl of fruit sailed off the wall in the dining room.
They both jumped, yowling. Kate instinctively grabbed him, pulling him closer. Andrew gripped the ax handle so hard, the tops of his knuckles were a deathly white.
Buttons scampered to the dining room and began to howl, a long, wistful note that chilled Kate to her core. He’d never made a noise even remotely like it before. He should have been barking, wanting to get at whatever was outside the cottage.
Instead, he almost sounded…mournful.
“Fuck,” Andrew hissed.
She knew he wanted to run out into the dark and confront their unseen stalker. But he also wasn’t going to leave her side. He never did.
“What did they do, hurl a goddamn boulder at the house?” he said, the cords on his neck standing out.
Kate tried to settle him down, though she felt she’d need five Valium to calm down herself. “Maybe…maybe they’re leaving. That was their last attempt at freaking us out.”
“Well, it worked.”
Because they had sealed themselves within the house, they couldn’t hear if there was still anyone out there, walking the perimeter of the cottage, looking for things to throw at it. The not knowing was almost worse.
Buttons stopped his howling, finishing with a wet chomp and a sneeze. He came back to the living room, turned twice, and then lay down beside the bed.
Kate and Andrew waited for an interminable amount of time, afraid to move, not daring to speak, waiting for the next crash to sound.
None came, and sometime after three, Andrew put the ax handle down and plucked her out of the chair and settled her onto the bed. He got them each a glass of water and lay down next to her.
“What do you think that was?” Kate asked, her stomach gurgling loudly.
“I don’t freaking know.” His jaw muscles were flexing nonstop. “Maybe some hillbilly asshole wanting to mess with us.”
She nestled into him. “But that first scream. That…that couldn’t come from a person, could it?”
“I don’t know, but as soon as it’s light out, I’m going to check.”
His body felt as hard as stone. Kate could almost smell the sour burn of adrenaline and anger seeping out of his pores.
If it was a person and they were anywhere near the cottage come dawn, Kate almost felt sorry for them.
Chapter Seventeen
Somehow, they had both managed to doze off, Kate’s head on Andrew’s chest. Her drool had soaked his shirt, her cold hand on his face. He carefully extricated himself, clasping her hand to warm it up without waking her. Kate’s circulation was so bad in her arms, she had a perpetual case of what he called ‘ice lady hands’.
It was almost seven. He opened the blinds on the doors and peered out at slate skies, the countryside dulled by a solid mattress of low clouds.
He slipped on his sneakers, woke Buttons up, and grabbed the ax handle.
Last night he’d been conflicted, terror and anger jockeying for post position. Now, in the gray light of day, he was still angry and also curious. Kate had thought it was an animal and they had been overreacting…again. She’d said this over and over while they watched TV, trying to convince herself, a steady cadence of self-hypnosis. He went along with her because she needed to settle her nerves. He saw her wince and grab for her chest a couple of times. The last thing he wanted was to have to rush her to the hospital in the dead of night.
That wasn’t an animal.
He’d been asleep when the scream erupted, so he didn’t have a full sense of the noise it made – animal, human, or otherwise. Catching the tail end, his brain still gauzy from sleep, he’d only known that someone was shouting.
“Come on, bud,” he said, opening the door. Buttons preceded him onto the porch, sniffing furiously, tail as still as the nonexistent wind.
Andrew walked off the porch, but Buttons continued to sniff around as if latching on to a brand-new scent.
“Man, I wish you could talk.”
Buttons surprised him by looking up and giving a quick, friendly bark.
“I stand corrected. I wish I understood dog.”
The first thing he wanted to see was the side of the house where the picture had fallen off the wall. Hours ago, he had worried that it was the start of worse to come. Would rocks through the windows be next? Was there more than one person out there? Once whoever was out there had access to the house, nothing was off the table. Maybe he’d seen too many home invasion movies, but he wasn’t naive enough to believe that just because he and Kate were up in Maine, crime didn’t exist. Or murder.
At the moment, he was concerned about damage to the house and losing his deposit. If that happened, he would find the person responsible and get the money from them one way or another.
“Come on, Buttons. We don’t care about the porch.”
The do
g dutifully followed him, showing he could understand Andrew. There was a chance that dogs were smarter than man.
The kayak was still secured to the roof of the car. He’d meant to take it down to the lake yesterday, but then he’d come home and seen the state Kate was in after doing her mad maid routine again, and he’d seen red.
As he turned the corner of the cottage, it was plain to see what had been thrown at it. A rock the size of Andrew’s chest lay on the ground, the wood of the house splintered from the impact.
“Shit.”
It had hit the side of the house about ten feet up from the ground. Andrew lifted the stone. Christ, it was heavy. Someone would have to be a world-class shot-putter to get it up that high. Or just enormously strong.
Buttons got on his hind legs to sniff the rock.
“Go ahead, buddy, and remember that smell. Next time, you warn us when he’s coming.”
He wasn’t going to leave this rock nearby as ammo if the bastard came again. Andrew walked it down to the lake, huffing and puffing with every step. He went to the end of the dock and dropped it in the water with a tremendous splash. He’d like to have thrown it farther out, but he wasn’t Superman.
The silence draped over the lake was unsettling. Even the birds weren’t out, the overcast skies keeping them asleep in their nests.
Buttons walked around the cold, unused fire pit. Andrew kept an eye on him. He didn’t want their city beagle running off into the woods. God knew, the humans weren’t faring so well out of their element.
Andrew heard the rhythmic splashing of the kayak paddles before he saw the old couple. Out here today, he wouldn’t be surprised if they could hear his heartbeat riding along the surface of the lake.
Their kayaks, one green, one yellow, made the turn around the small spit of land that lent a degree of privacy to the cottage. Hugging close to the shoreline, wearing helmets and life jackets, the man and woman paddled with serene intensity.
Seeing them up close for the first time, Andrew was struck by how old they actually looked. His father used to call octogenarians wrinklies. That always made Andrew laugh as a kid, for shit sure he would never be a wrinklie. Old age, the kind of old age that made you look like a walking, talking mummy, was the kind of thing that happened to other people. Old people. Andrew would never get old, and even if he did, he’d never look like that.
“Hi,” Andrew said, waving.
The pair of wrinklies, white hair peeking out from beneath their yellow helmets, dipped their paddles in the water and brought their kayaks to a stop five feet from the dock.
“Good morning,” the man said with surprising gusto. Andrew was expecting a shaky voice, timbre thin as a moth’s wings.
“Enjoying this beautiful sunrise?” the woman asked, her smile bright enough to make up for the dingy clouds. Andrew had a feeling she smelled like fresh-baked pie and strawberry preserves. It was a weird thing to pop into his head, but there it was, just the same.
“At least it’s not raining,” he said.
“It will later today,” she said. “All into the night. But they say sunny skies tomorrow.”
“Getting in your morning exercise before the storm?”
The man laughed. “It could be teeming and we’d be paddling along. The only things that keep us away are lightning and the cold. It’s cold a long, long time up here, so we make sure to get as much in as we can when things heat up. I’m Henry, by the way. This is my wife, Ida.”
“Pleased to meet you. I’ve watched you for weeks. In fact, you inspired me to rent my own kayak.”
Ida looked around the dock and shore. “Oh dear, did you sink it?”
“It’s still strapped to my car. I was going to bring it down today.”
“Do you kayak often?” Henry asked.
Andrew shrugged. “A few times. I won a kayak race in camp when I was a kid.”
Ida tapped her life vest. “Invest in one of these. I know you kids think you’re invincible. Better safe than sorry.”
He chuckled. He hadn’t been called a kid since, well, since he was a kid. Hell, he was pushing forty. Though to them, he must seem like a newborn. They couldn’t be younger than ninety, which made their jaunts in the kayaks all the more remarkable.
One good thing talking to them was doing was bleeding the anger from his system. Andrew felt the tension in his shoulders and jaw start to ease.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, knowing he was not going to get himself a life vest.
“How do you like the house?” Henry asked.
“It’s beautiful. Everything is beautiful up here. So peaceful.”
“Where you from?”
“New Jersey.”
“The Garden State,” Ida exclaimed. “Do you have a garden?”
“I tried growing tomatoes a couple of times. My wife and I have black thumbs.”
Ida clucked at him. “There are no black thumbs. It’s just a matter of chemistry and attention.”
“Ida grows world-class rose bushes. People come from miles to see them. We used to host a party every year in our garden, but parties are a little much for us these days. We’re content to let people wander the front yard and admire them.”
They talked for several minutes, Henry and Ida asking him questions about his job, if he had a wife (Oh, where is your Kate? The poor dear. You please tell her we said hello and can’t wait to meet her when she’s feeling better), what made him come to Maine, how long were they staying, and so on.
He sat on the end of the dock so he wasn’t standing over them like a benevolent giant. They might be wrinklies on the outside, but there was still a spark of vitality to them. It warmed his heart to see, but was also painful. He realized this would never be him and Kate. If the doctors were right, Kate would achieve young Andrew’s wish and never become a wrinklie.
“Where do you live?” Andrew asked.
Henry pointed behind them. “A ways back. There aren’t many houses on this lake, and all of us are full-timers. The winters are rough, but we have people to help with the shoveling and plowing. These days, I’m happy to shovel my spoon into my mouth without spilling half of it on my lap. Your cottage is the only rental. It used to belong to Fred Windham.”
Ida interjected, “No, Fred owned it before. Remember? He was Abe’s son, but he didn’t like the cold. Or our wet springs for that matter. He sold it to that couple from outside Boston. What were their names?”
Henry tapped the handle of his paddle, thinking. “Yes, Ides, you’re right. That was the Harrelsons. Uh-huh. The Harrelsons bought it from Fred, but they only stayed a year. His job transferred him somewhere and the commute was just too much. They’ve been renting it out ever since.”
It looked like they wanted to go, Ida resting a paddle in the water, but Andrew had one last thing he wanted to ask.
“Are there any kids living around here? Like teenagers?”
Ida shook her head. “No kids that I know of. You and your wife are the youngest people out here right about now. Of course, there may be grandchildren popping in for a visit.”
It wasn’t the answer he was hoping for.
“Why do you ask?” she said.
“It’s nothing. We’ve been hearing strange noises and someone was throwing rocks at the house last night. I’m sure it’s just someone messing with us.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible. Everyone up here pretty much keeps to themselves. I’m sure you’ve noticed this isn’t exactly a hotbed of activity. I can’t see the Hensons or D’Angelos harassing you and your wife.”
“Who are the Hensons and D’Angelos?”
Henry pointed to the left and right of the property. “Your neighbors, though I doubt you’ll see much of them. And I’m sure you’ve seen how much they’ve spaced out the parcels of land. Hard to run i
nto someone, unless you catch them up by the main road when they’re coming to check the mail or heading out.”
Andrew forced a laugh. “My wife thinks it’s animals. There was a deer the other night that woke us right up. It was making some awful noises.”
Ida smiled. “They will at that, especially if they get scared, which isn’t too hard to do to a deer. You’ll get used to everything soon enough. It takes some adjusting. Trust me, when Henry and I moved here from Connecticut forty-three years ago, we jumped at every sound. Ours was only the second house built on the lake. We felt like Mother Nature wanted us out.”
That made Andrew feel better. It was almost as if she knew exactly what he needed to hear and was delighted to give him comfort. Maybe Kate was right.
Never question the wisdom and kindness of the wrinklies.
“I won’t hold you up anymore,” Andrew said. “It was very nice meeting you. Hopefully when my wife is feeling up to it, we can have you over for lunch.”
“I never turn down a free meal,” Henry said.
“Take care of your Kate. We want to see her real soon,” Ida said, and the pair paddled away.
“Let ’er rip, Ides,” Henry said, chuckling as his paddle skipped the water’s surface.
Andrew watched them sail away, Henry raising his hand in a final farewell.
When he looked down into the water, he could see the rock. Ida had said the sun would be out tomorrow (thank you, Annie). He’d go for a swim and carry the rock to where he couldn’t see it. An animal hadn’t thrown that rock.
He’d brought them here to relax and recharge before Kate’s next round of hellacious treatment. Andrew joked that he and Kate must have been child killers in a previous life. Their current incarnations were just a long step toward penance. Well, it appeared that penance involved spoiling his Hail Mary pass at peace.
Spending their nights with one ear open was not the way he wanted to wile away the rest of the summer. That wouldn’t do. He was not going to cower like a child or be run off. He’d be damned if he let that happen.
