Clowders

by Vanessa Morgan

  Aidan's body tensed. “It's not what you think,” he said, failing to meet her eyes.

  Jess took a deep breath, forcing her voice not to tremble. “No?” she asked. “Explain it to me then. How is this not what I think?”

  Aidan looked back to his hands. He wanted to say that it didn't mean anything, and that it wasn't what it looked like - not exactly - because that was the truth. However, it made no sense to come up with any more excuses, because she'd put the pieces of her own puzzle together.

  “For God's sake, Aidan,” she said. “We've been together for more than 11 years. We've been best friends – partners.” She took a breath, which escaped in a sigh of defeat only a second or two later. “Why did you do it? Are you bored with me? Don't you want to live with me and Eleonore anymore?”

  Aidan shook his head but didn't reply. “What's happening to us?” he mumbled to himself.

  There was silence for a minute or so.

  “I expect you to use your closing fee to allow Eleonore and I to return to America,” Jess said.

  He wished he could buy time while deciding how to respond to his wife. He quickly realized, though, that it didn't make sense to continue hiding the truth from her. “There won't be any money,” he finally said. “I was fired on urgent notice.”

  “What reason did they have to fire you?” Her tone went from apathetic to angry. She had no more patience with him.

  Aidan shook his head. “I honestly have no idea.”

  Jess looked up at him, her eyes cold. “Who are you?”

  “I'm sorry,” he finally said. “For everything.”

  “I need more than just to hear you say 'sorry.' I'm leaving you. I don't know how yet, but I'll find a way.” Her expression was bitter. He could see the loathing behind her eyes. Those bright eyes that used to smile at him were now filled with disdain. Before, Jess had always followed him in everything he did. She had sacrificed herself for love. Because she had always kept her frustrations to herself, he never took his wife's needs into account, because he knew Jess would follow. There would be no consequences. But the fact that she reacted now meant she had reached her boiling point. For the first time in the more than 11 years they were together, he felt that her willingness was wearing off. Seeing Jess fall out of love with him was something he hadn't expected. And it wasn't something he was ready to accept.

  ***

  Jess went to bed early that night, exhausted from the emotions, but she lay awake for hours nevertheless. Around three o'clock at night, she stepped out of bed, put on her bathrobe and went into the hallway. She left the bedroom door ajar so that the light from the room illuminated the path in front of her.

  She started to worry about Eleonore's anxiety and what caused it, so she checked on her more often than usual. She looked inside Eleonore's room through the crack. Her sheets were pulled back. The bed was empty.

  “Oh, God,” Jess whispered.

  She immediately went back to the bedroom to wake up Aidan so they could search the house together.

  With all the lights bright on, they went through each room at a time. They started with the living room, then the bedrooms, then the kitchen and bathroom. They looked behind all the furniture. They called Eleonore's name.

  Nothing.

  Their daughter was nowhere to be found.

  All the windows were closed and the front door still locked from the inside, so she couldn't possibly be out. They went on the street to look for her anyway, but the effort was in vain.

  Jess started to panic. “We have to call the police.”

  “She can't have disappeared,” Aidan assured her.

  “Something must have happened to her. Do you know the police number here?” Jess asked.

  “I know it's not 911,” Aidan said. “I'll look it up.”

  But Jess was already looking for the number on her cell phone. “I have it.”

  As she was typing in the number, she heard a vague sobbing. “That's Eleonore. I can hear her,” Jess said.

  Aidan listened carefully. “I don't hear anything,” he said. But then his facial expression changed. He did hear her now. “It's coming from inside the walls.” He searched for where the sobbing was coming from, but all was quiet once more.

  They searched the place for a few more seconds, and then the sobbing started again. So quietly they'd almost missed it at first.

  Suddenly, Jess knew where her daughter was. She opened the closet inside the wall next to the front door. It was small enough to host nothing but the vacuum cleaner.

  As soon as Aidan opened the door, Eleonore ran out, letting out an ear-piercing scream.

  Jess stopped her, but Eleonore was losing it. She was crying and yelling as though someone was trying to murder her.

  “What were you doing in there?” Aidan said.

  Eleonore didn't say anything but cried uncontrollably.

  Jess had a hard time holding her still.

  “What were you doing in there?” he asked again.

  “Hiding.”

  “From whom?”

  “The girl. The monster. It attacked me.” Eleonore held out her arms that were now full of large and deep scratches.

  “Oh my God,” Jess whispered. “Did Avalon do that to you? Are you keeping him here somewhere?”

  “No!” Eleonore yelled. “Avalon was my friend.”

  Jess' mind raced. She didn't see any other cat in here.

  “I don't want to sleep alone tonight,” their little girl whispered.

  “It's okay, E,” Aidan said. “You can sleep in our bed.”

  Aidan took Eleonore to the bedroom, and Jess stayed in the kitchen to warm her some milk. That usually helped to get her back to sleep.

  As she stood there at the stove, the weird click click click of an animal's claws reverberated through the living room once more.

  What was that? This time, she had to know.

  The light from the kitchen slashed through the darkness of the living room like a beam of hope. Something shifted in the corner. It was a lurking shadow hiding in the darkness. It had the same height as Eleonore, but it couldn't be her. Aidan had just taken her to her room.

  The creature slowly turned its head toward her. Though she still couldn't see much in the darkness, one thing about it stood out in the little light there was: this figure had fangs – cannibal teeth as sharp as the points of her best kitchen knives.

  Several weeks had passed since she'd first seen it, and Jess had nearly forced a rational explanation for the disquieting experience. She had been tired and drunk. Her sugar level had been low. She had been able to block it out, pretend it never happened. But now that she saw it again, she knew it wasn't just an animal.

  She didn't dare switch the lights on for fear of what she might see. The gloom had become threatening. A sinister feeling took hold of her. Jess hesitated. Something twisted against the valves of her heart.

  Close the door. It's your imagination, she thought. You don't want to see what's there anyway.

  Jess stood there for what felt like an eternity, a paralyzing sense of fear unraveling inside her stomach. She took a breath, clicked the light on, and looked inside.

  Nothing.

  She was both relieved and sure she was wrong.

  Even though she didn't see or hear anything anymore, she still had the feeling that the creature was still out there.

  She checked Eleonore before she locked herself in the bedroom and pulled the covers up to her chin. She tried to stay still as she lay in bed, not wanting to wake Aidan.

  The wind was picking up. The walls of the building groaned with each gust.

  After what she'd seen in the living room, there was no way Jess would be sleeping anytime soon.

  But had she really seen something?

  Yes.

  No.

  She wasn't sure.

  CHAPTER 19

  A light drizzle fell from the gray sky. It was the bleakest day in Luxembourg so far since they arrived, but Jess was h
appy to traverse the rain and even to take the long road to Eleonore's school as it meant they were nowhere near what she thought she'd witnessed in her living room the night before. Jess wished she could deny what she had seen, but every time she closed her eyes, her imagination pictured it sitting in that corner, shaded by the dark. She saw herself approach, only to catch sight of those sharp, shiny fangs, and the fear coursed through her once more like a quick-spreading disease.

  Luckily, outside Clervaux, she felt safe.

  She rolled down the two front windows as she made her way through the forest to Eleonore's school. Tiny raindrops fell onto her daughter's face, and the autumn breeze lifted strands of her hair as she gazed outside to search for deer, making her look even cuter than she already was. She loved her girl so much her heart could burst. She'd do anything to protect her.

  But how? How could she get her daughter to a safer place?

  Without any money or Aidan's help, she wouldn't be able to do so. Aidan had to know what she'd seen, but she also realized he would never believe her.

  ***

  “I'm home,” Jess said when she opened the front door. She expected Aidan to say something but was greeted only by silence. Maybe he was sleeping in, the advantage of being jobless. But when she went to the bedroom, the bed was empty and unmade.

  She shuddered at the idea of being home alone. She never wanted to see that horrible creature again.

  What if it attacked? How could she defend herself?

  Or, maybe --

  Maybe seeing it could be the best thing to happen to her today.

  It could be just what she needed to convince Aidan to leave.

  She reflected for a minute, then went to the living room and rummaged around in the chest of drawers near the left wall, looking for Aidan's camera and tripod.

  Found it!

  She installed it on the kitchen counter and inserted the camera. She then went to the fridge and pulled out a broiler. Hell-bent on getting to know the thing that stalked them, Jess dropped the chicken onto the kitchen floor and opened the window.

  “Come on,” she said. “Come have a bite.”

  She put the camera on record and shut the door behind her after she walked out. She was curious to see the result because whatever she caught on camera would be her ticket out of here. She'd have proof. But at the same time, she was apprehensive. What if what she saw was too horrific for words?

  It was probably not such a good idea to try and confront the creature, so to avoid being home she left the house to run some errands. When she came back two hours later, the chicken was still on the floor, untouched.

  She grabbed her phone from her purse and texted her husband: “When will you be home? We need to talk.”

  The hours passed, but Aidan never replied.

  By the end of that afternoon, Jess picked up her daughter from school and then took her to see the preparations for the carnival one more time, treating them both to hamburgers and cotton candy for dinner. Anything to avoid being home.

  When Jess and Eleonore finally returned, it was already getting dark outside, but there was still no sign of Aidan.

  And the creature hadn't appeared either. The broiler was still in the same spot as where she left it.

  “What's the chicken doing on the floor, mom?”

  “I thought it was a good idea to lure Avalon back home,” Jess lied. “You know how he used to love his chicken.”

  “That's a brilliant idea!” Eleonore said. “Let's leave it on the floor in case he comes back.”

  “Okay, but just for a while. I think it's going to storm tonight.”

  “Then he'll definitely be back.” Eleonore was beaming with anticipation.

  After she switched on the television to occupy her daughter, Jess took the camera and sat down on the sofa next to Eleonore. She quickly went through the recording to see if she had captured anything at all, but the creature never made its appearance. She deleted it all and put in a new battery so she could start recording again tomorrow.

  The storm was setting in. The rain dripped and sloshed, gushed and gurgled from every pipe.

  The window, she thought. It's still open.

  As if on cue, right when she got up to close it, lightning struck, and the electricity went dead.

  Jess let out a loud sigh. “Let's see if we can fix this.”

  Feeling her way in the darkness with her hands, she lit the two vanilla-scented candles that sat on the living room table, and while the thunder roared, she got up, holding out one candle in front of her for light. She peered outside through the curtains. Apparently, the blackout wasn't due to a general power outage in the area, because the neighboring lights were still on.

  “Stay here. I'll be back in a second,” Jess said, while she went into the hallway to look for the circuit breaker panel near the front door.

  Eleonore followed her anyway.

  As soon as they entered the hallway, she heard the clicking of claws reverberating inside the apartment. The soft clattering of a plate against the hardwood floor indicated something was eating the “present” Jess had left in the kitchen.

  “Mom! I think that's Avalon,” Eleonore said excitedly. She immediately wanted to run toward the kitchen where the noise was coming from, but Jess held her back.

  “You don't know that,” Jess said. “Stay with me until we get some light.”

  Slowly, she stepped toward the circuit breaker panel, scanning the darkness that surrounded the tiny flame of her candle.

  One of the trip-switches had indeed tripped to the OFF position. Jess put it back on to reset, and half a second later, the lights flipped back on.

  With Eleonore close behind her, she went toward the kitchen and waited at the threshold of the door.

  Empty.

  The chicken, however, had been half eaten.

  Before closing the kitchen window, Jess cast a glance outside. Whatever had been there had left but couldn't be far.

  She moved through the apartment, checking the doors and windows to make sure they were all securely locked. Then she checked them one more time, and at last retreated to the living room. As long as they lived in this apartment, they would never open again.

  Jess' heart was beating fast from fear. Next to her, Eleonore was joyfully singing, “Avalon is comin' to town,” to the same tune as the Christmas song.

  ***

  Aidan had spent the entire day looking for a job all over Luxembourg. It was mainly cold calling, but it seemed like he might have had some success. He would know more within a few days.

  Initially, he only wanted to stay away for a few hours and then come home with a bouquet of flowers and spend the rest of the day trying to mend the broken pieces with Jess, but when he received her message, which read, “When will you be home? We need to talk,” he was suddenly apprehensive about returning and decided to stay away for as long as he could. He didn't want to have the same fight and confrontation all over again.

  During the day, he had received a message from Lorenza, too. “Let's have lunch,” she had written, but he had refused, reminding her he was married and therefore they couldn't see each other anymore. He couldn't allow himself to do anything stupid again.

  When he finally came home around 11 that night, Jess and Eleonore were already in bed.

  After a quick shower, he settled down on the sofa and started zapping. Nothing caught his interest. A late-night talk show. Reruns of Seinfeld. An action movie set in the White House. Extreme body makeovers. He was too agitated to sleep and too distracted to focus on the screen.

  After a few minutes, he switched off the television and went to bed. He could hear from Jess' breathing she was still awake.

  “You wanted to talk,” Aidan started.

  There was silence.

  “First of all, I'd like you to join Eleonore and me at the cat carnival tomorrow.” Jess' voice sounded surprisingly controlled, not a single trail of uncertainty. “She's been looking forward to this event, and she w
ants you to come with us.”

  “Okay. No problem.”

  “And, second, I am still leaving you. I intend on moving out early next week.” Her voice was as cold as liquid nitrogen.

  “Can't we talk about it before you do something drastic?”

  “It's not even about us anymore,” she admitted. “I saw something in the living room last night. And in the forest right after the accident.” Her speech became erratic again. “I think it was in the kitchen, too, that same night, except that at first, I figured it was Eleonore because I didn't have my lenses in, but it wasn't.”

  “An animal, you mean?”

  Jess didn't immediately answer. “I don't know,” she finally said into the ensuing silence. “No, not an animal. It had something--” She didn't finish her sentence. “I think it's been staking us out since we arrived. Eleonore saw it, too. In her room.”

  “She said it was a cat.”

  “What I saw was too big to be a cat.”

  “Then it's not.” Aidan shook his head and raised a hand as if to dismiss it altogether.

  “But seriously, what did I see then?”

  “How can I know what you saw, Jess? Maybe it really was just a cat. I don't know.”

  “You know it's not a cat. And what about the girl she says she's seeing?” Jess shot him a look. “Isn't it possible that we've been – I don't know--” Her voice trailed away.

  “Yes?”

  Aidan wondered if Jess meant she saw that creature from the local legend that was half-human half-cat, but whose name he had forgotten.

  This town was definitely strange. Even he felt a ghostly vibe at times. But believing in a demonic being was something else entirely, especially because Jess wasn't gullible. She was smart enough to know better.

  But what if she truly saw things? In that case, he couldn't be angry with her.

  He thought back to his courses in college. Was it sociologist Frank Furedi who said that the content of fear was historically and culturally determined? Fear of the gods, the Salem Witch Trials, the global post-9/11 panic, the rise of nuclear fear, the angst concerning natural disasters such as a tsunami. Collective hysteria was a scientific fact - a phenomenon where several people of the same group, sometimes an entire town, heard something so often they started to accept it as truth. The fear survived because it was built on a stronger, transcending feeling that we were not in control. Jess was someone who rarely felt in control; therefore, she could easily fall subject to this type of paranoia, especially as the entire town had already preceded her.