Something in the Dark

by Pamela Cowan

  Chapter 26

  Three weeks had gone by since Muncie was attacked and life had begun to get back to normal. Austin somehow managed to get through Thanksgiving, with its festive decorations and a message of thanks she certainly wasn’t able to feel. She hadn’t felt like celebrating at all, but Janice invited her and Muncie to dinner and she had ended up having a nice, if pensive day.

  The best thing that had happened lately was her new employee, Shellie, who seemed to be working out well. She was friendly to the customers, unfailingly honest, and despite the expectation that having seven children might affect her punctuality, she had shown up for work reliably every day.

  The other bright spot in Austin’s world was helping Janice with her Christmas play.

  The school had let Janice have use of the gym on Friday, which meant she had only Thursday afternoon and evening to put her decorations in place. Muncie had helped by cutting out the plywood backdrops but they still needed to be carried into the gym and set in place.

  Struggling to move the colorfully painted panels into the gym made Austin feel that life was finally beginning to return to normal. After the last cloth was draped around the base of one of the many religious symbols, artfully hiding the raw truth of lumber and nails, Austin stood back to admire her work. The colorful strands of lights they’d laid out along the children’s route looked better than she’d expected.

  Janice was hanging a strand of small white lights, meant to represent stars, from the ceiling. “Hey,” she called down from the top of the scaffolding. “We’re about done here. How about I buy you that milk and cookies I promised?”

  “You mean you want me to fetch and carry for you?”

  “Correct. That would earn you an A plus. Do you mind?”

  “Yes, but does it matter?”

  “You remember how to get to the kitchen?” Janice called.

  “I’ll just follow my instincts.” Austin shouted back, her voice echoing from the walls. She didn’t like that. Didn’t like the hollow sound her shoes made as she walked down the long hallway toward the kitchen either. But there was plenty of light. Hard and white, it bounced off the worn yellow and black speckled floor tiles and illuminated the rows of predominately green and red construction paper art. The season was obvious. Austin admired the pictures of Santa and Mrs. Claus, elves, and snowmen and Christmas trees paper clipped to strings of yarn stretched along the walls.

  Clever, she thought, no tape on the walls, no tacks to tick off the janitor. She almost missed the door to the kitchen and had to backtrack. It was a long narrow room with two double sinks, a commercial-sized dishwasher, walls of metal cupboards and drawers, and a long center island. Everything one would need to feed two hundred and fifty elementary school kids lined the walls and filled the cabinets.

  A little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff, Austin decided they would be uncivilized and eat their cookies out of the bags they brought them in. She would just need to find glasses for their milk. On her fourth cabinet she found the glasses and set them on the island. The milk would be in the refrigerator of course, but when Austin opened what she thought was the refrigerator it turned out to be a huge freezer, stocked to bursting with packages wrapped in white paper.

  “Strange. I wonder where. . .” There was a door beside the freezer. Maybe it led to another room where they kept the refrigerators. She pulled it open and a wave of cold air swept over her.

  “Wow!” She stepped inside a room that looked like a pantry but felt like a refrigerator. The walls were lined with deep shelves painted gloss white and lined with newspaper. They held bins of vegetables, fruits, bottles upon bottles of juice, and several gallon jugs of milk.

  “There you are.” Austin realized she was talking out loud to herself. She decided the school was so eerily quiet that she was doing it just to fill the silence. She chose a bottle of milk that had already been opened, unscrewed the lid and sniffed to see if it was fresh, then took a last look around the refrigerator. She wondered if they were all like this or if this was just such an old school that–

  The door slammed shut behind her. The sudden change in pressure actually made her ears hurt for a moment. She nearly dropped the milk. Then she set it down carefully and took a deliberate step to the door. “It’s just a spring loaded door, that’s all. They probably built it like that so people wouldn’t leave it open and spoil the food.” She had so thoroughly convinced herself that when it refused to open, she was actually surprised.

  “This isn’t fair,” she said to no one in particular, her voice rising with each word. “Do you hear me? This isn’t fair. Let me out. Let me out right now.” She rattled the cold metal doorknob. It jiggled up and down and turned freely, but the door would not open. She turned away to look for something to pound on the door. Janice would hear her. Of course she would. She would be here any moment. Austin fought back the building panic. One of the vegetable bins should make a hell of a lot of noise. She dumped one out. Potatoes bounced and rolled across the floor. She turned back toward the door and the lights went out.

  “I knew you would,” she shrieked. “I just knew you would.” She drew back the vegetable bin, plastic, and not as heavy as she would have liked, and smashed it into the door. It didn’t make much noise but it did seem to drain all of her energy. She slid to the floor, her back against the door, her hands flat on the floor at each side of her as she fought for balance against the waves of dizziness that finally overcame her, taking her to that place where there was no fear.

  Chapter 27

  It barely surprised Austin to come to and find herself lying on top of the center island in the big, empty kitchen. In a way, she had come to expect this sort of thing. Her acceptance of the strange occurrences in her life, her unique relationship with time and memory, bothered her. It was as if she had given up in some way— had accepted a measure of helplessness.

  When she woke her first awareness had been of the stainless steel island, cold and hard beneath her. She opened her eyes and blinked against the harsh lights. Then she rolled over and sat up, her legs dangling, and slipped off the table and onto her feet. She felt a little woozy, and reached for the island to steady her balance. This was the way she always felt after one of her “episodes.” She knew the feeling would pass. She would just have to endure if for a short time, the way she imagined diabetics endured jabbing a needle into their own bodies, a momentary discomfort to be forgotten until the next time. But at least they had control, she thought enviously.

  How long had this one lasted, she wondered, and what damage had she done to get free? Her thoughts still hazy, she started to walk toward the refrigerated room to check, but her shoe caught on something. She looked down and saw a strip of duct tape dangling from the toe of her shoe. She reached down and pulled it off, balled it up, and absently shoved it into the pocket of her jeans.

  The refrigerator seemed fine. The floor was still littered with potatoes, and the vegetable bin she’d used to hit the door had a crack down one side. The part of her that hated chaos wanted to go in and pick up the potatoes and set things right, but she knew there was no way she could bring herself to step inside that room again. That room! She had been trapped. There had been darkness. Where was he? Where was the man who locked her inside and turned off the lights? At least Muncie was safe. He had not come to the school with her. It had only been her and Janice. Janice! Austin tried to run, but her legs were half numb. She lurched from the kitchen into the hall.

  “Janice!” she yelled, her voice bouncing from the walls and echoing down the long hallway.

  Stumbling down the hallway, weaving erratically, Austin reached for the wall to restore her balance. A child’s rendering of reindeer tore free and fluttered to the floor, but she didn’t notice.

  As she pushed through the double doors and into the gym, she noticed the overhead lights had been turned off but the room sparkled with Christmas lights, a dazzling display of color. Austin looked up to where she had last seen Janice
at the top of the scaffold. There was a tangled cluster of white lights there and a wide swath of darkness. It looked as if a whole section had come down. Austin moved closer, and finally saw Janice.

  She knew it was Janice. You recognize your best friend, even if her face is gone.

  Austin screamed, she screamed and then she turned to run and ran right into his chest. He grabbed her by the arms with a grip so tight she knew there was no hope. She knew it was her turn, that whatever he had done to Janice he would now do to her, but she would not fight. In fact, she would welcome the end. Let it be over. Let it finally be finished. She closed her eyes, sinking into that dark place she knew so well hoping this time, she would not return.

  After a long time she realized she was sitting in a chair with her head down between her knees, and someone was waving smelling salts under her nose.

  Eventually it occurred to her that the smelling salts were gone and she was sitting up in a chair with her hands over her face, gently rocking back and forth. “Her face. Her face. Where is her face?” she had been chanting it until the words lost their meaning and became nonsense syllables, a mantra of protection. Her voice was hoarse, a harsh whisper she barely recognized. Her throat hurt from the strain of her screams. She would have laryngitis for a week.

  At some point, Mark arrived. He took her hands. She opened her eyes and he was kneeling at her feet. “Listen,” he said. “Her face is not gone. He wrapped duct tape around her head. You hear me? Her face is there. It was just the tape you saw.”

  “She’s okay?”

  “No, Austin. She’s dead. You have to come out of it and deal with that.”

  “Duct tape?” There was something about duct tape but it eluded her. The harder she tried to think about it, the more slippery it seemed to get.

  “A friend of mine, Doctor Shapiro, gave you an injection. You might be feeling a little strange right now. Just let yourself go. Let yourself relax. I’m sending you to the hospital. You’ve had a bad shock.”

  “He was here. He grabbed me.”

  “No Austin. He didn’t grab you. You must have found Janice and screamed. The janitor heard you. Then you ran into the hallway and right into him. He didn’t try to grab you. It was just the janitor. He was as scared as you were.”

  “I want to go home,” Austin said.

  “You will. Tomorrow.”

  She remembered being alone then for a while, or maybe it had been before. She remembered uniformed officers walking past. She recalled shiny black shoes, the smell of cigarettes, bits of conversation. “Hung up just like a freaking piñata. Whacked her in the head over and over just like—” but then someone had shushed him. She remembered other things as well: twinkling lights, white sheets, the smell of disinfectant and then the welcome slide into a drug-induced sleep as deep as a coma.

  When she woke up they gave her a cup of coffee and she burned her lip. The pain was the first sensation that had seemed real since she had seen Janice’s body, wrapped in blinking white lights, swinging slowly beside the scaffolding.

  Later that morning a police detective interviewed her. Lying in the narrow hospital bed, in an unfamiliar room and with the remnants of the tranquilizer making it hard to focus, Austin felt disoriented and vulnerable.

  She noticed the detective had big hands and a bloody red spot in his eye like you can get from coughing or throwing up too hard. He smelled like stale cigarettes, wool, and aftershave that was too sweet. She found that, by concentrating on each little detail, her thoughts became more clear. She answered his questions in a forced whisper.

  When he finally ran out of questions and left, she climbed out of bed and found the locker where her clothes had been neatly folded and stacked. She reached into the pocket where she’d put it and found the flattened ball of duct tape. She carried it to the bathroom, closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She held the ball of tape up to the light, turned it this way and that. It was almost as if she were willing it to speak to her. If that was what she expected, then she was disappointed. It told her nothing. She tossed it in the garbage.

  An hour later the same detective returned with another man and a woman. He introduced them as the forensic team from Medford. They took Austin’s clothes and placed them in plastic bags, took scrapings from under her nails and told her they had arranged for blood samples to be drawn and sent to their lab. They asked if she had any questions. She did not.

  After they left she returned to the bathroom and fished the ball of duct tape out of the garbage. After hesitating for just a moment, she dropped it into the toilet and flushed, watching to make sure it was gone.

  Mark arrived while Austin was forcing herself to eat a hospital lunch of limp macaroni and cheese and juice that tasted like the plastic cup it was served in. He had a bag of her clothes with him.

  “I got in touch with your brother,” he explained, “and he put a few things together for you. How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” Austin answered. “Still a little shaky, but better. Have the police talked to you?”

  “Not today.”

  “Do they think I had something to do with Janice?”

  “I don’t think so,” Mark said reassuringly.

  “Is the janitor all right?”

  “I believe he is. Though you did scare the hell out of him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK. I’m sure he’ll make a full recovery. It’s you we’re worried about right now. You’ve had a pretty rough time.”

  Austin shuddered as the memory of Janice, hanging from the ceiling, her features obscured by several wraps of duct tape, so that it appeared as if someone had removed her face. She rubbed her arms briskly, trying to erase the cold, and the vision.

  “When I ran into him I guess it was natural for him to put his arms out. I thought he was trying to hold me. I thought he was the killer. I need to go home.” Austin declared. “Can I go home, or are you holding me for the police?”

  “Not at all,” Mark said, putting his hand on hers and giving it a reassuring squeeze, “You’re here voluntarily and can leave whenever you want. Are you sure you’re feeling strong enough to go home?”

  “Yes.” Austin asserted. “I need to be around my own things, in my own house. Besides, I have a business to run. It won’t run itself, and this is a very busy season for us. Work will…well, it will keep my mind off other things. Do you understand?”

  “Of course I do.” He patted her arm. “You seem to know what you need, so let’s not try to second guess you. I’ll go hunt up a nurse and we’ll do what we have to to get you out of here. Okay?”

  Chapter 28

  Austin hadn’t been able to think clearly that night in the hospital, but that morning, as she waited to be discharged, she found herself with nothing else to do but think. What she wanted was to find a pattern. There must be a pattern and a reason for the things that were happening to the people around her.

  She considered Will first. Muncie seemed so sure of Will’s guilt. Could he be right? Had she been allowing her emotions to rule her and believe Will too quickly?

  If she assumed that all four of the events were tied together and that the same person was responsible, then she had to rule Will out. The police had assured her that he had been in California when Janice was killed.

  Austin was discharged at two o’clock and Mark drove her home. She said goodbye to him quickly, almost rudely, but with many reassurances. Then she made a quick call to Muncie to let him know she was fine and to thank him. He had thoughtfully had her pickup driven home. As soon as she had finished with those obligations she fixed a thermos of coffee, grabbed a half-full bag of chocolate chip cookies from the cupboard, and climbed in her truck. She munched on the cookies and sipped the coffee as she drove to Moon Meadow.

  Snow had turned the unplowed parking area into a glistening white table crisscrossed with tire tracks. Her tires crunched across the thin layer of ice that crusted the inches of powder underneath. There was
plenty of traction, but she still drove in slowly and pumped her brakes as she pulled up and parked near the dock. Hers was the only car in sight. She was alone, the quiet nearly absolute, except for the ticking of her truck’s cooling engine and somewhere, beyond the tree line, a snapping, clattering sound. Probably a small herd of deer disturbed by her presence and moving deeper into the woods, or maybe just a tree bending and breaking under the weight of the snow, she decided.

  Getting out of the truck, Austin noticed that the wind was picking up. Its icy touch made her skin sting and her lips feel raw. She took a few deep breaths, taking the chill air deep into her lungs. It felt as if she was letting out the antiseptic stink of the hospital, but she could only stand it a moment before climbing back into the warmth of the truck’s cab.

  Sitting quietly she watched as the slanting rays of the sun glinted across the river, the sky slowly turning from powder blue to emerald blue with streamers of pink, but she wasn’t really seeing the spectacular sunset. Instead, she was busily considering a pattern.

  When Bunny was killed that Saturday night, where had she been? She had been lying on the floor of her bedroom, unconscious and in the dark. For how long?

  When Muncie was attacked, she had been unconscious. Evidence showed she had escaped the basement. Was that after Muncie was attacked, or before?

  When Janice was killed, she had been unconscious again, trapped in the refrigerated room. She had awoken in the kitchen, with no memory of how she got there, but with a strip of duct tape attached to her shoe.

  Had she used the tape to hide her best friend’s features so she could kill her more easily?

  She had sort of joked with Mark, at one of their sessions, about the possibility of an evil spirit, an entity born in the darkness of the bomb shelter. She had thought of it as separate, a distinct organism that acted on its own. What if the thing did exist, but not alone? What if it needed her to act because it was hiding inside her?