What Lies Below

by Mark Lukens

  Pam smiled at Rita and got up. Rita seemed a little relieved that they had abandoned their conversation.

  Pam went out to the grass with her daughter and ran around with her. It felt good to run around in the backyard for a while. And for those moments, she felt young again.

  After a few rounds of chasing her daughter, Pam had to stop. She was breathing hard and she couldn’t believe she was this out-of-shape. She promised herself that when they got back home, she was going to dust off the Stair Master in her office and start to use it again.

  “Mom, can we take the boat out on the water?” Sarah asked.

  Pam was about to tell Sarah that it was too late in the afternoon to take the boat out today, but something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and stopped her words. She looked up at the back of the house, up at the plate-glass windows of her father’s bedroom, and for a split second she could’ve sworn she’d seen her father standing there at the windows, staring down at them.

  And now he wasn’t there.

  But there was no denying the emaciated silhouette she’d seen in the window. There was no denying the feel of his eyes on her, the weight of his stare.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?” Pam forced her eyes away from the house.

  “Please. Can we take the boat out on the pond?”

  “Not right now, baby,” Pam told her. “It’s too late today.”

  “Can we at least just walk down to the pond and look at it?”

  “Just for a few minutes.”

  Sarah seemed okay with that, but Pam knew she wasn’t going to give up that easily.

  They walked down to the water’s edge of the tranquil pond. The pond was large, about the size of a supermarket parking lot. Trees crowded the far side of the water where the woods began.

  “Why can’t we take the boat out?” Sarah persisted. “It’s not dark yet.”

  Pam glanced back at the house for a moment, at her father’s bedroom windows. They only reflected the setting sun now, and if he were standing there right now she wouldn’t be able to tell.

  “Mom?”

  “It’s too late today,” Pam told Sarah as she turned back towards her. “But we’ll take the boat out tomorrow. I promise.”

  Sarah let out a huff of a sigh.

  Pam looked back at the house. She was still a little freaked out from seeing her father standing by the windows. But he couldn’t have been there, she told herself. She must have imagined it. With all of the machines and tubes he was hooked up to, he wouldn’t be able to get all the way to the windows.

  Unless somebody helped him, her mind whispered.

  Would Maria help her father to the window if he asked her to? Was she allowed to do something like that? Pam wasn’t sure. Maybe she would ask Maria about that.

  Pam looked back at her daughter. “Let’s get back to the house. Rita’s going to start cooking dinner soon. But tomorrow we will go out on the pond. I promise. Okay?”

  Sarah seemed bummed out for a moment, but she didn’t throw a tantrum about it. She was a good kid, and Pam loved her so much. She was blessed to have a daughter like Sarah. And even though her piece-of-shit father had run out on them, she couldn’t help loving him just a little bit for the gift he had given her in Sarah.

  Sarah didn’t argue. She took Pam’s hand and they walked back to the house.

  Had she imagined her father standing by the windows in his bedroom? Like she had imagined the phone call from her father in the middle of the night?

  What was happening to her?

  She wondered if she should call Dr. Stanton.

  ELEVEN

  After dinner, Pam and Sarah visited with Carl a little more. But he was still unresponsive, just lying there and rocking his head back and forth slightly in the bed, mumbling incoherent sentences. Pam thought she heard her father say that he wanted to go home a few times, but she wasn’t sure.

  They didn’t stay long beside his bedside. Pam didn’t want Sarah to be around Carl too long when he was like this.

  But it didn’t really seem to be bothering Sarah as much as Pam thought it would. She was taking this well for an eight year old.

  They went downstairs and watched a movie in the family room. In the middle of the second movie, Sarah got tired. Pam escorted Sarah upstairs and tucked her into her bed. She shut off the light as Sarah rolled over and fell asleep almost instantly. Pam left the room and closed the door almost all the way.

  The house was deathly quiet. Rita had gone to bed for the night and Pam assumed Maria was in her father’s room, watching over him for the night.

  Pam’s mind slipped back to her earlier conversation with Rita. She thought about all of the other nurses who had quit. It seemed strange to her and she planned on talking more with Rita about it. It didn’t seem right to only have one nurse taking care of her father around the clock. She was sure that he was paying enough for the service.

  The idea of several nurses quitting suddenly over the last few weeks bothered Pam. She thought about what Rita had said, that some of them were scared when they were quitting. One claimed that she’d seen a ghost in the house.

  A ghost.

  And then Rita shot down that idea right away. But there was something in her expression for just a moment. Pam swore she’d seen it for just an instant. Rita seemed to be hiding something.

  Pam had been about to ask Rita more about it, but then Sarah had called her out to the grass to play with her.

  And that’s when she’d seen her father at the windows staring down at her and Sarah.

  Or she’d thought she’d seen him.

  She thought about the nurses again, and she couldn’t help wondering if Maria had something to do with the other nurses quitting. She wasn’t sure why that thought had entered her mind, but it just didn’t seem to make any sense that all of the other nurses had quit.

  Maybe Maria was trying to rack up more hours for herself.

  Or was it something more sinister than that?

  Get a hold of yourself, Nancy Drew, Pam told herself as she stood by her daughter’s nearly-closed bedroom door, watching her sleep for a moment in the shaft of light from the hallway that shined through the gap in the door.

  She glanced down the hallway towards the other shorter hall that shot off from this main one—the short hallway that led to her father’s bedroom.

  Maybe she should check in on her father one more time before going to bed.

  But she decided not to.

  Instead, she walked down the hall to her bedroom. She locked the door once she was inside, and she left the lamp on next to her bed. She turned the TV on, but kept the sound muted out, just like she did at home. She had a stack of books on the table next to her bed: the historical romance novel she was still reading and two thrillers. And she had brought her dad’s blue book of case studies with her from home. She even planned on actually reading his book, even though she was sure it would be dry and boring … but still, it was something her own father had written.

  She wasn’t sure why she had brought the blue book with her, she was certain that her dad had plenty of copies of this same book in his study downstairs—multiple copies of all of the books he had written, she was sure.

  But there was something about this book, and she couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the book. She flipped to the back and stared at her father’s author photo again. Then she flipped back to the front, to the Table of Contents. She read the titles of each section.

  What was it about this book? It felt like a memory was struggling to surface in her mind, but she couldn’t see it clearly.

  The titles of each section of the book didn’t seem to be ringing a bell for her. She flipped through the book and looked at a few of the diagrams and photos.

  Maybe she would start reading the book. She had read through a few of her father’s books and papers a long time ago, and maybe now was a good time to read th
em again.

  She flipped back to the beginning of the book and searched through the titles of each case study again. Her eyes stopped at one case study in particular: Girl M.

  Maybe that’s where she should start, with Girl M.

  It was the only thing in the book that even seemed to be trying to tug at her memory. But she still couldn’t see it. It was frustrating, like something floating underneath the darkness of her memory, like something pale floating just underneath the surface of a dark pond, like she could make out something in the water, but she couldn’t see the details.

  A noise sounded out in the hallway and Pam stiffened. She froze for a moment, her ears tuned to the slightest sound. The noise she’d heard had sounded like a creak in the floorboards, and then a scuffling sound, like from a shoe, like someone had just been walking softly just outside her bedroom door.

  Pam closed the book carefully, trying not to make a sound. She set it down on the table on top of the other books and then got up and crept to the door.

  It could be Sarah walking around out there. She had been brave earlier in the day when she had said that she wasn’t afraid of the dark. And she usually wasn’t. But this wasn’t their house and she was in a new environment. Maybe the darkness and solitude had gotten to her. Maybe she wanted to crawl into bed with Mommy like she’d done every morning for the last few days.

  Pam stood by the door for a moment, hesitating.

  What was she doing? If it was Sarah out there, then she needed to open the door.

  But what if it wasn’t Sarah?

  She wasn’t sure where that thought had come from.

  This was silly. She was in her father’s house with a gated driveway and state-of-the-art security system. She had nothing to be afraid of.

  She unlocked the door and opened it.

  No one out in the hall.

  Pam stepped out into the hall and walked silently down to her daughter’s room. She pushed the door open just a bit, and the soft light from the hallway splashed across her daughter’s face.

  She was still asleep.

  Then who had been walking out here in the hallway?

  Maria? Rita?

  Her father?

  She got a picture in her mind of her father shuffling down the hallway, dragging his IV tube and stand behind him on the floor, his eyes bulging and glazed over, a vacant stare, his mouth hanging wide open.

  She pushed the thought away and closed the door to Sarah’s room again, nearly all the way wat shut. She decided that she was going to check on her father after all. She continued down the hall to where it branched off to the shorter hall that led down to her father’s room. She took a few steps down the short, wide hall and then she stopped.

  The double doors at the end of the hall were open just a bit.

  Pam crept down the hall to the doors. She stood outside them for a moment, listening.

  She could hear something from inside the room—someone whispering.

  Pam eased the door open, expecting to see Maria in the chair beside her father’s bed. But her father was alone. She made a mental note to ask Maria why her father was unattended in the middle of the night.

  She walked to the bed with her eyes fixed on her father the whole time. He may have been whispering earlier when she was outside the doors, but now he was very still, eyes closed, asleep.

  Pam sat down in the chair next to his bed. She looked at his wasted body covered with the blanket. His stick-thin arms were outside the blanket, resting next to his body. His hands looked so large because his arms were so skinny. His knuckles looked bony and bigger than she ever remembered.

  She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair, exhaustion beginning to hit her now.

  “She’s come back …” her father whispered.

  Pam opened her eyes and saw that her father had turned his head towards her and was now staring at her with wide, blue eyes. “Diane has come back … she came back for me …”

  Pam was about to tell her father that Mom wasn’t back. She hadn’t come back for him, and she hadn’t come back for her, either.

  But she didn’t tell him that. She just closed her eyes again and let him whisper his nonsense. She was so tired now, and the thought of getting up and out of the chair and walking back to her bedroom didn’t even seem possible now. Her body felt so heavy, so drained of energy.

  She knew she needed to get back to her bedroom, but she decided that she would wait for Maria to return first.

  “I’ve seen her,” Carl said, his voice much louder now. He sounded so much closer.

  Pam opened her eyes.

  Her father was sitting up in bed and staring at her with wide, bulging eyes. But there was no fear in those eyes now—only rage.

  He opened his mouth impossibly wide—his teeth were long and sharp and jagged. He grabbed her arm. She tried to pull away from him but he was too strong … supernaturally strong.

  Pam screamed.

  Her father lunged at her throat and clamped down on her neck with his teeth—his rows and rows of jagged little teeth. She felt the teeth sink into her flesh and there was a blast of shocking pain. She struggled … she screamed …

  TWELVE

  Pam jumped awake in her bed and saw Maria hovering over her.

  “What … where …”

  “You were screaming,” Maria said. Her voice was compassionate, but her eyes were dark and cold.

  Pam looked around and it took her a few seconds to realize where she was.

  She was back in her bedroom.

  It had been a nightmare. She had dreamed about walking to her father’s bedroom and then dreamed that he had attacked her. She remembered his wide-open mouth and sharp little teeth. She remembered him biting her neck, his teeth sinking into her flesh …

  Her hand flew to her throat, but everything was normal. The only thing she felt on her neck was a film of cold perspiration and her pulse thumping under the skin.

  Maria took a step back.

  “I’m sorry,” Pam finally breathed out. “I get nightmares sometimes.”

  Dreams. That’s what Dr. Stanton called them. Dreams are only what we interpret them to be.

  “If you’re okay, I’m going back to Mr. Westbrook’s room.”

  Pam nodded and she finally felt like she had her breath back. “Is my daughter … did Sarah wake up from my …”

  Maria shook her head and gave Pam a small smile. “No,” she answered simply.

  Pam nodded. That was good. She didn’t want to scare Sarah their first night here. She had nightmares a few times a week, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken up screaming.

  Maria left Pam’s bedside and walked towards the door to leave.

  The door.

  I locked the door before I went to bed, Pam thought.

  “Maria.”

  She stopped at the door.

  “How did you get in my bedroom? I locked the door before I went to sleep.”

  Maria turned and stared at Pam, and then she gave a slight shrug. “It wasn’t locked. I heard you screaming and I came right in. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. Really, I do. But the door … I’m sure I locked it before going to bed.”

  Maria gave Pam that cold little smile again. “Maybe you just forgot. Maybe you just thought you locked the door.”

  “Yeah. That’s it. That has to be it.”

  Maria left without another word and shut the door.

  Pam pushed herself up in the bed and leaned her back against the headboard. She let out a long exhale, and she felt like she’d been holding her breath for some time.

  She didn’t even remember falling asleep. The last thing she remembered was looking through her father’s blue book …

  Pam looked at the table beside her bed. The blue book was on the table, sitting on top of the other books she’d brought to read.

  She got up out of bed and hurried to the bedroom door. She twisted the lock on the doo
r handle and then tested the door handle to make sure the door was locked. But the door wouldn’t budge—the lock worked.

  Maria said the door had been unlocked, but Pam was certain she had locked the door.

  Maybe she had dreamt that she’d locked the door.

  She hurried to the closet and pulled out the duffel bag that she’d brought her clothes and books in. She found her leather-bound journal inside. It wasn’t as nice as the one Dr. Stanton used, but he had advised her to jot down any dreams that disturbed her, along with any thoughts or feelings that came to her.

  She brought the notebook back to the bed and sat down cross-legged in the middle of the rumpled sheets and blanket. She opened the journal to the next blank page, the page after her last nightmare about Dr. Stanton trying to split her face in half with a small ax.

  A shudder ran through her and she pushed the image of the nightmare away. She had a new nightmare to write about right now.

  She wrote about the dream she’d just had tonight. She also included the imagined phone call from her father that had spurred her into coming here to this house. And she wrote about seeing her father in the bedroom window, staring down at her and Sarah while they played in the backyard.

  And at the end, she wrote about locking the bedroom door.

  After she was done, she read over everything. These notes seemed like pieces of a puzzle to her, clues to a mystery. She glanced at the blue book of case studies on the nightstand.

  Then she turned back to her journal and made her final entry: The case of Girl M. What does it mean?

  Maybe if she kept writing these things down, the answer would begin to reveal itself. Maybe the pale thing underneath the surface of the dark water in her mind would emerge and she would finally be able to see it in the light of day.

  She closed the notebook and lay down in the bed. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep so she pulled out the historical romance that was tucked away underneath the blue book of case studies. She opened the book to where the bookmark was and began reading.

  Thirty minutes later she drifted off to sleep with the lamp on beside the bed and the open book on her stomach.