I didn’t know anything about wine, really. It had been one of Kurt’s new hobbies since we’d come into more money. I just knew that the bottles in the back were his special collection, and I would never open one of them again.
“That sounds delicious,” he said and began to walk to our room to change out of his work clothes. “Any dessert?”
My heart sunk. That was strike two. I hadn’t had the chance to make anything fresh from scratch between writing and planting flowers. “I baked one of the pies I froze a couple of weeks ago.” The pie was made from scratch just like he liked, but it was one I’d put up in the freezer for times when I didn’t have the chance to bake. “We’ve still got some of that vanilla bean ice cream you like. You could have a slice à la mode,” I offered. “I could pour a shot of bourbon over it like they did at that restaurant. You liked that so much.”
No answer.
I went into the kitchen to make sure the table was set correctly, and then I cut up the chicken and put the potatoes on a serving plate. Panic gripped me for a moment as I tried to decide whether to put the serving dishes on the table or leave them on the counter. I heard him coming down the hall, and decided to put the utensils on the tray and just wait.
Kurt was dressed in athletic shorts and a t-shirt. “Hey, Mags. I’m not hungry right now. I’m going to hit the gym. Make sure to keep a plate warm for me,” he said and headed for the door.
“What time will you be back?” I asked.
The front door slammed shut.
I couldn’t eat much after that, but I tried anyway. One glass of wine was all I allowed myself. I wanted more, but it was obvious that drinking too much would be strike three.
The rest of the time Kurt was gone was devoted to digging up the flowers I’d planted earlier in the day and keeping a plate of food the perfect temperature. I’d also managed to throw together a quick batch of candied pecan sugar cookies. I worried they were slightly overcooked, but it’d have to do.
Three hours later, Kurt returned, and I was exhausted. The beds in front of the house were nearly back to the way they’d been when he left that morning. I was certain in the dark he wouldn’t even be able to see the slight mounds where I’d replaced the dirt. I probably could have gotten out the hose and a hoe and made them completely flat, but then I wouldn’t have had time for the cookies.
“I need a shower. Lay some clothes out for me,” he barked when he came in the front door. “I’ll eat when I’m done.”
I set to work putting out a set of the clothes he liked to sleep in and then made sure that his food was warm and not dried out. While he ate, I sat by Kurt’s side to make sure that he didn’t need anything. I poured his wine and replaced his napkin when it got messy.
“I was too harsh earlier,” Kurt said with a devious smile on his face. “I like the flowers. It was disappointing to see them gone when I got back. Why don’t you give me a couple of cookies and a glass of that bourbon? After that, you can go outside and replant them.”
By the time I got back in the house, Kurt had obviously drank a couple more glasses of bourbon; I could tell by the bottle he left on the counter. Our bedroom door was closed, and that meant it was locked too.
I went into the laundry room and grabbed some clothes out of the dryer. Kurt never looked in the washer and dryer, so it was the one thing I could slack on. As long as he had what he needed, my husband didn’t pay much attention to what was actually in the washer and dryer. It was a good thing too, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had any clean clothes, and what I’d been wearing was covered with dirt.
There was a guest bathroom upstairs, and I hoped that I could take a shower without disturbing Kurt. I started the water and sat on the toilet waiting for it to get warm. My ears stayed attuned to the hallway. If Kurt was going to come stomping up the stairs to tell me it was too late for a shower, I wanted to know before I got in and got my hair wet.
Thankfully, he left me alone. After showering, I went into the guest room that had an air mattress already inflated. It was either that or ride the couch. It felt like a betrayal, but I still wanted as much distance between him and I as possible.
None of the upstairs bedrooms had curtains because we didn’t use them for anything. Well, anything other than the air mattress I slept on when I’d pissed Kurt off enough for him to lock the bedroom door.
The moon wasn’t quite full, but it was bright enough to illuminate the room. I didn’t feel secure sleeping with an uncovered window. For some reason, I felt vulnerable, even though I was on the second floor and it was doubtful that anyone could see in.
I tiptoed down to my desk and grabbed a few thumbtacks from a drawer. Back upstairs, I used the tacks to cover the window with a dark sheet. I made sure to push the pins in where the window frame met the wall so that it wouldn’t put visible holes in the wall.
When the window was half covered and I was hanging the sheet on the other side, I looked out and saw what I thought was a large dog moving through the corn toward the neighbor’s house. At that time, I’d shrugged it off. The thing looked a little strange, but it was dark and I was tired.
As I stood on my porch and watched more and more police cars arrive at the house across the street, I wished I was brave enough to ask someone what was going on. A fire truck had arrived without its siren on, but there was no fire. As soon as the police and paramedics arrived, they left for another call. That much I could hear through the shouting.
After a few moments, I realized I had my cup of coffee in my hand. I took a sip, and the hot liquid made me feel warm and safe. One of the officers looked over at me and gave me a friendly wave. For a moment, I was terrified. What if he came over and talked to me? What if Kurt came home?
The cop turned back to his conversation with two other officers, and I felt a little disappointed. I’d never have admitted it, but I craved human companionship. I wanted a conversation with someone who wasn’t going to spend the entire exchange pointing out all of my daily mistakes. It was a bizarre duality. I knew that everything about my life was wrong, but at the same time, any time I would try to focus on that thought, it would disperse like fog in the midmorning sun.
I didn’t know much about the woman who lived across the street. I’d seen her come and go when I was brave enough to look out the front window, but I never introduced myself. Kurt and I didn’t know any of our neighbors. We’d bought the nicest house on the block, and he basically acted as if the rest of the people who lived on our street were inferior. He had this attitude like they were lucky to live near us. “Just think about it, Mags. They have the honor of having one of the hottest up-and-coming authors and an award-winning salesman living amongst them. They should be paying us to live here.”
Never mind that the award he’d won was five years ago and it was most likely his uncle that gave it to him. Yeah, Kurt sold used cars at his uncle’s dealership. He’d left law school to work there. He and Uncle Paul were convinced that he could make more money selling cars than practicing law. So far, it hadn’t happened yet.
Anyway, the woman that lived across the street looked to be a bit younger than me. As far as I knew, she didn’t have a significant other but Chloe did appear to have a harem of insignificant others. I should clarify that I don’t know her real name. I called her Chloe because that name seemed to fit.
I hadn’t seen her that morning, but one of her frequent insignificant other’s white BMW was parked out in front of the house. I called him Sven because he was tall and blond. Actually, he looked like some kind of Norse god. I imagined that he was a surgeon or something because there were parking passes for both of the local hospitals in his back window. Oh, and sometimes he showed up at her house early in the morning wearing scrubs. I figured he popped in after an all-night surgery for an early morning snog.
Around the time I was going to go back in, a large police officer with a shiny bald head led Sven out of the house in handcuffs. He was dressed in gray sweats that were smeared quite ob
viously with large amounts of blood. In my mind, I changed his name to Sven the Butcher. That gave me an idea for the book I was working on, and that was good because Kurt would be texting soon to see how much work I’d completed.
I left the front curtain open so that I could glance outside from time to time. About an hour after they’d carted Sven the Butcher off in a squad car, they wheeled a body out on a stretcher and put it into the back of a coroner’s van. I assumed it was Chloe, but I couldn’t see her because she was secure in a black body bag.
It was sad, but I had work to do. I knew that when Kurt came home, he’d have a great deal to say about Chloe. Most of it would be along the lines of what a whore she was and how she deserved to die, but if I could get my work done and make a nice dinner, he might be in a good enough mood to spare me.
My fingers had just begun to glide across the keyboard when, out of the corner of my eye, something caught my attention. It wasn’t the circus going on out of the front window. Instead, the corn stalks behind my house moved in a strange manner. It was just the ones that were right in my line of sight if I turned my head and looked out the patio door.
The movement had started several hundred feet away from the house, but whatever it was moved in my direction. My stomach lurched so hard that I thought I was going to puke. Not because of whatever was in the corn, but because the smoke alarm in one of the upstairs bedrooms began to wail.
I ran up the stairs and figured out which room the noise was coming from. The door was closed, so I pushed through it. My heart raced and I wished I had my phone, but once inside the room, I realized that there was no fire.
The alarm must have been malfunctioning, but unfortunately it was wired in. I couldn’t just take the battery out to silence it. I’d like to say that I figured out how to fix it on my own, but eventually I had to call Kurt.
Chapter Three
Day Three
Fortunately, I didn’t have to go anywhere the next day. I mean, it’s not like it was a real black eye. He hadn’t punched me or anything. Kurt was right. It wasn’t right of him to shove me, but I’d stumbled and hit my cheek. He hadn’t intentionally slammed me into the wall.
It was just a slight bruise above my cheekbone and a small broken blood vessel in my eye. “You’d better not go out. People will think the worst.”
I needed a few things from the store, but Kurt told me to get grocery delivery. He said to schedule the order for after he got home for the night and he’d get the door.
Normally, after we’d had a fight, Kurt would be apologetic. I’d half expected to wake up that morning and find him already awake and making breakfast. But it had been a long time since he’d tried that hard after an argument.
For a while after I started making money, he’d work really hard to get my forgiveness after a spat, but things had returned to what I guessed was baseline. He left that morning in a sour mood, and all I could do was hope that Kurt would be better by the time he got home.
Sometimes after he got angry, he could stay that way for days. Those were the worst times. I shuddered as I thought about the last time. Unconsciously, my hands went to my belly. I covered it protectively, as if it wasn’t empty. My mind spun trying to come up with a way to make sure Kurt was happy when he came home.
I thought that perhaps I could get more writing in that day. My anxiety was high, but sometimes I could use that to my advantage. I could channel it into my story. Another book would mean another influx of cash. Kurt had a lot of plans for our next windfall, and I knew he would start to get excited as I neared the end of the book.
A half an hour into my work, I heard it. At first, I just thought it was the cat in the litter box, but it went on for so long that I took my earbuds out.
“Howdy, cut it out!” I hollered at the cat.
But I realized that she was lying on the sofa across from my desk. I’d startled her when I yelled. My next realization was that the scratching was still going on, and it was coming from the back patio door.
I hadn’t opened the curtain that day, so I couldn’t see what it was. Standing frozen, I stared at the patio door. My mind flashed back to seeing something coming toward the house from the field. I just knew it was out there.
Howdy screeched and ran up the stairs, but the scratching would not stop. “Who’s there?” I called out, wondering if anyone would even be able to hear me.
From somewhere in the house, I heard my mother say my name. A cold chill passed through me, and I scanned the area to see if it was clean enough to meet her approval. Then I laughed at myself because my mother lived a thousand miles away. It had only been my imagination.
But the scratching on the glass at the back door was not. I took a deep breath and straightened my back; anything I could do to make myself feel braver. It was probably just a racoon or stray dog, so I went to the laundry room to grab the broom.
The scraping of claws against the patio door didn’t abate. I steeled myself and reached out for the curtain. The sound grew more frantic as I wrapped my fingers around the fabric. It knew I was there.
“Don’t be a baby,” I said to myself.
Twenty-Five Years Earlier
Maggie’s mother was in the spare bedroom, putting together a desk for her father. Father was out somewhere reading and drinking coffee, but that was okay with Mother. She liked her projects.
“Go in the other room and get me that thing,” her mother said and stuck her hand out as if she actually expected Maggie to teleport it to her.
“What thing?” Maggie asked.
“The thing I need to put this part together,” Mother barked.
“I don’t know what you need,” Maggie said as gently as she could. She already knew that she was in a no-win situation. Even if, as a seven-year-old, she knew what tool her mother needed, she wouldn’t have fetched it fast enough. Or she would have handed it to Mother the wrong way.
“Don’t be stupid,” her mother said. “Just go get the thing I need.”
Maggie didn’t ask again. She just hoped that she’d be able to figure out what Mother needed, or Maggie thought she could just bring her the whole toolbox. Then Mother wouldn’t need her to fetch tools anymore. Maybe she’d even let Maggie go outside and play with her friend.
She went to the hall closet and pulled the long, green box out. It was heavy, and Maggie made sure to carry it from underneath. One time, she’d tried to bring it to Mother carrying it by the handle, and the ancient latch had given way. Maggie spilled tools all over the hallway, and Mother had berated her until she cried.
“You don’t have the sense god gave an orangutan,” Mother said. Mother said that a lot. It always confused Maggie because she was a straight A student. Anything less and there would have been hell to pay.
“I brought the box,” Maggie said cheerfully, as if she could infect Mother with a decent mood.
“That’s not what I asked for, but give it to me,” Mother said. She rifled with the tools and then huffed. “It’s not in this one. Go get it from the other one.”
At that point, Maggie still had no idea what tool her mother needed, but she also hadn’t seen the other toolbox in the closet. Why they had two, she didn’t know. Probably because Mother didn’t want to buy a bigger one when two worked just fine.
“I didn’t see the other toolbox in the closet,” Maggie practically whispered.
“That’s because it’s in the basement. I was using it in the laundry room yesterday. You’ll have to go down there.”
That thought made Maggie sick to her stomach. The finished part of the basement was supposed to be her playroom, but she hated it. The only time it was fun to go down there was when her friend was with her. If she was alone, it was terrifying no matter what time of day. Every time she came back up the shag-carpet-covered stairs, it sounded like someone was behind her.
The laundry room was scary too. That part of the basement was mostly unfinished, so there were cobwebs and shadows in every corner.
Th
at day’s task was a double whammy. She’d have to go into the scary part of the basement and stay there until she figured out what tool her mother wanted. Then she’d have to make her way back up the stairs with the thing running after her.
“I don’t want to go down there,” Maggie pleaded. That day, her fear of the basement was more than that of her Mother. “Please don’t make me go.”
“Don’t be stupid. Get your ass down there and get the tool,” her mother snarled.
The look in Mother’s eyes was one that Maggie recognized. She’d find no empathy that day, and the harder she tried to get Mother to understand how terrified she was, the more Mother would dig in her heels.
Just once, Maggie wished she’d had a mother who would hug her and tell her it would be alright. Maggie’s fantasy mother would say, “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m a little afraid of the basement too. We’ll go together.” And then they would go together and Maggie would see that it was nothing to be afraid of after all.
She’d then get to go outside and play with her friend from down the street, and fantasy mom would do something fun for herself. That way, when Maggie came home, she wouldn’t be yelling about how ungrateful Maggie and her dad were and about how she had to do everything. Mother wouldn’t tell her that she’d been thinking of running away.
But none of that was EVER going to happen.
I pulled the red curtain back just in time to see something dark flash across the yard and disappear into the corn. My chest heaved, and it occurred to me that I’d been holding my breath.
As I started to calm down, the doorbell rang and I jumped half out of my skin again. The doorbell rang again, and that was followed by a succession of pounding knocks.
“Are you in there, Ma’am?” A deep male voice said. “Clarksville Police.”
I made my way quickly to the door, and when I opened it, the officer who’d waved at me the day before was standing there. His smile faded when his eyes made their way to the mark on my cheek, but he didn’t ask.
Dark Ends: A Horror Collection Page 9
