“Great. Let me go ahead and get the keys and so forth and I’ll be right back.”
Brian walked up to the receptionist cubicle.
“Hey, Sharon. You rang?”
“Yes. Your mother-in-law has been trying to get a hold of you. She sounds concerned. Says it’s important.”
Brian’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Did she say what was wrong?”
“No. Just said she needed to talk to you.”
He bent over the counter and pointed at the phone.
“She still on the line?”
Sharon nodded.
“I’ll take it over here,” he said, motioning with his head to an empty desk nearby. Making his way to the gray desk, he looked down at the black buttons running down the side of the phone. The red diodes next to each flashed nonstop.
“What extension Sharon?”
“Three.”
Brian pressed the appropriate button.
“Mom?”
A sigh came over the phone.
“Brian. You need to come down to the hospital now. Something has happened to Ashley.”
Brian’s heart skipped a beat.
“What? Wait… what’s going on?”
“Please, just get down to St. Vincent’s Memorial.”
She relayed the details of what floor they were on. He told his boss he needed to leave and why, then hopped in the car, speeding up route 75 North. A nervous churning lodged in his stomach, a swarm of butterflies slamming against it. His heart thrummed steadily against his chest. He had gotten no details from his mother-in-law as far as what was wrong. Not knowing was making him more apprehensive.
When he arrived at the hospital, he hurried through the automatic sliding doors. The information desk directed him to the emergency area where his mother-in-law was holding Jessica.
“What’s going on? Is Ashley O.K.?”
“She had an episode.”
Brian looked bewildered.
“Episode? Episode of what? What are you talking about?”
An imprint of worry came across her face.
“I don’t know what happened exactly. I was upstairs with Jessica and came downstairs to get some formula. That's when I found Ashley on the kitchen floor. She was barely breathing.” Janice shook her head as tears flooded her eyes.
Brian clenched his teeth.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. I suppose. I’ll take you to her room.”
She led him to Ashley's triage room which seemed to take an eternity. It was small, big enough for a bed and medical monitoring equipment. Her eyes lit up when she saw him approaching. She was dressed in a baby blue hospital gown, covered in red streaks on her face and arms. It gave him pause. He didn't recognize what they were until he sat down beside her. Scratches and cuts.
“What is going on honey?” he said, embracing her. “What in the world happened?”
Ashley cried. He grabbed a few tissues from the small end table in the room and handed them to her, waiting as she composed herself.
“I was downstairs getting ready to paint and… they were everywhere. They were all over me.”
The recollection triggered another fit of sobs as she lay her head on Brian’s chest. Brian held her, rocking.
“What do you mean honey? What was all over you?”
“The spiders. There must… there were hundreds of them.”
Brian continued to rock her in silence.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Of course I believe you.”
Ashley pulled back, looking him in the face.
“Do you? Don’t patronize me, Brian. Don’t! I’m not exaggerating. The basement is infested with them. They were all over me. I…”
“Honey, hold on. Slow down. Why don’t we wait to get you out of here and home and then we can…”
“No!” Ashley said, waving her arms, scooting back on the bed. “I am not going back in that house until they are all gone, Brian. All of them.”
Brian sat dumbfounded. He glanced at Janice who had a worried look on her face. Ashley had a look of terror-stricken determination. She was dead serious.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get an exterminator over to the house to make sure there are no spiders there.”
Part IX - Brian and the Snake
Brian drove home from the hospital in a stupor. When Ashley had recounted her story earlier about the spider infestation, he thought it was hyperbole out of control. Women did that more than men, or at least were more emotional. The hospital released her with the overt suggestion that Ashley should get counseling. She insisted on staying at her mother’s house and refused to come back. If anything was clear, it was that reality.
Her dogged persistence that her story was true began to trouble him. It wasn't what she was saying; it was how she was saying it. Something in her eyes. A horror. She believed every syllable of her story. He had to prove to her that nothing was wrong and that the spiders were gone. That’s what prompted him to investigate.
He opened the basement door, scanning the walls. He flicked the light switch up, and the basement filled with brightness. The luminance served as a security blanket, supplying him with confidence. He felt safe to venture further.
Striding over to the far wall where she had begun, he inspected the corners and crevices for any signs of a nest. He examined the ceiling, looking for a mass of spiderwebs. He found only random strands. Fifteen minutes later, no spiders. Evidence of their presence was there, but they were long gone. That’s when he began to worry again. Her story was starting to sound like the ramblings of someone becoming unhinged. He couldn't think like that. She was his was his wife, and he loved her. He had to give her the benefit of the doubt. Anything sounded better next to insanity, even the absurd.
It reminded him when he was seven years old. It was a boring, rainy, summer Wednesday. His brother was watching Looney Tunes upstairs, one he had seen a million times. Brian was in the basement playing with his Playskool garage, a toy he hadn’t touched in months. He had to scavenge through an old toy box to find the people and cars that came with it. He and his brother weren’t good at keeping their toys in order but few kids were. Leaving the top of the toy box off, he scooted over to the garage, his small hands full. In one big pile, he showered the garage with accessories, a small cacophony of clattering filling the quiet.
From the back of the garage under the cracked ramp — he couldn’t tell exactly — a slender, dark object moved. He didn’t know if it was due to something hitting it or if it was of its own volition. He stood back away from the garage, scared but curious. He moved over to the other side, holding the edges of his overgrown shorts with nervous fingers. His small body casting a looming shadow over the garage as he peered downward. The sun blotted out, the object moved, sensing his presence, slithering behind a pile of nearby boxes.
A giant snake!
Screaming at the top of his lungs, he ran upstairs as fast as his young legs could take him, taking two and three step bounds.
“Mom! Mom!”
His mom ran into the kitchen with concern painted on her face.
“What? What’s wrong?” she said holding him by the shoulders.
“The giant snake is downstairs! I saw it! It tried to get me!”
His mom’s expression changed to one of relief, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling with a heavy sigh. A small grin formed on her lips which didn’t make him feel any better. There was a giant snake downstairs that tried to bite him and she thought it was humorous.
“Do you know you scared me half to death, screaming like a banshee? I thought your arm was chopped off from the way it sounded.”
He looked back at the basement door, fidgeting in place.
“Aren’t you going to get it? Aren’t you going to get the snake?”
His heart was pounding like a jackhammer. He was so concerned about getting away and warning someone, he’d forgotten to breathe, his words coming out in short gasps.
“I’ll tell your dad about it as soon as he gets home and I’ll make sure he goes down there and gets rid of it.”
“What’s gonna happen until he gets home?” he asked, his eyes glancing at the door. His mom crouched in front of him to block his view.
“I’m going to close the basement door so it doesn’t get us and you’re going to play and watch T.V. up here with your brother. Is that okay?”
For a moment, he stood there wondering how she could be so calm when there was a giant snake in the house (at least it was giant to him). Maybe she knew something he didn’t. Maybe his dad had the poison ready to feed it. Whatever it was, he wished they would hurry and take care of it because the snake was alive, in the house, and loose.
Brian smiled at the memory, feeling embarrassed. His wife probably felt the same way he felt that rainy afternoon. It was simply an overreaction. There was nothing down there. It was a case of hyperbole run amuck, working in conjunction with her aversion to spiders, understandable since she was allergic to brown recluses. The sight of any spider made her nervous. Ashley had never reacted as she did today. Some things that were still unanswered (like why Ashley scratched herself) but he would leave that for another day. Mystery solved.
He turned to leave and stopped in his tracks. Setting at the bottom of the stairs on the floor…
No. It can't be. There was no way.
He walked with measured steps until he was on top of it. Bending down to get a closer look, his eyes widened in amazement, his mouth ajar like a rusted mandible. Disbelief clouded his mind.
The old Playskool garage, his old Playskool garage. He knew because it had a cracked ramp in the exact location where his used to be. Other evidence proved it was his. The broken elevator knob, the piece of medical tape he had tried to fix the ramp with hanging from the bottom. The kite string he used to fix the gas pump. They were all there.
Brian was mystified. This was not here when he came downstairs. How did it get there? Was he dreaming? If so, it was the most vivid one he’d ever had.
I wonder if…
Cocking his head to one side, he surveyed the back of the garage. His eyes reached their destination but to his surprise, nothing was there.
The room became darker. Something blocked the light behind him.
“Oh, my…”
Raised in front of him, hissing like a tire with a bad leak, was a giant snake. A real giant snake. Twelve feet long and a foot wide. Its body was a meadow green, the rubbery skin reflecting off the sixty-watt bulb behind it. Its irises swam in a bright red sea surrounding the negativeness of its pupils. A gaping mouth revealed sharp, serrated teeth and long fangs. Its eyes locked into a baleful stare with Brian’s who was frozen with trepidation.
Swooping like an eagle on the horizon, the snake moved in for the kill. That was all it took to snap Brian out of his shock. He moved with surprising quickness, throwing the Playskool garage into the reptile’s jaws. He hadn’t even thought of doing it, guided by some natural intuitiveness. The jaws of the snake clamped shut, a living bear trap, shattering the toy, sending splinters and chunks of plastic pieces showering onto the floor. Brian took advantage of those few seconds and ran up the stairs. Closing the door, he stood with his back against it, his breaths choppy, panic ringing through every nerve.
Silence.
Wham!!
The door vibrated with the force of an explosion, knocking him forward into the kitchen table. Wood cracked and a searing pain shot through his spine at the moment of impact. The window at the top of the door burst into a fusillade of glass shards.
Struggling to his feet, he hurried to the counter next to the refrigerator. finding two long carving knives, he backed away to the farthest corner, knives held out in front of him and waited.
Part X - Enter the Cadre
Time passed though Brian couldn’t ascertain how much. He knew it was enough time for the snake to come through the door but it didn’t. Nothing was heard, nothing stirred.
More time passed before he decided it was safe. Slumping into a kitchen chair, the knives held so tight that the whites of his knuckles were showing; he stared blankly at the basement door.
“Well,” he thought. “I could be having a bad dream or hallucination.”
He caught sight of the pieces of broken glass spread all over the floor.
“Or I could be going insane.”
Explanations eluded him, at least the logical ones. He needed to go get help. He got up from the kitchen table intent on calling the exterminator when he froze in his tracks. What was he going to tell them? There was a snake the size of a small dinosaur in his basement? For all intents and purposes, it was a small dinosaur. The thought of the reptile’s rubbery green skin reflecting off of the fluorescent light caused a fit of revulsion to rise up in his stomach.
The doorbell shook him out of his thoughts. He wasn’t expecting any company. It probably was the neighbors wondering what the noise was all about.
He pushed the curtain away to the side a crack to take a peek. There was a young girl in with jet black hair standing at the door. He opened it, curiosity getting the best of him. That wasn’t the next door neighbor.
“Yes?”
A slender man with short salt and pepper hair in a light gray trench-coat shifted into his line of vision. Accosting him with piercing bluish-gray eyes, his body language cried no-nonsense, flustering Brian.
“Wha… what do you want? Who are you?”
The man stood his ground, now blocking the doorway.
“Where is it?”
Brian was taken aback and now had his guard up even more than before. He raised the knives up in front of him intent on using them.
“You have about five seconds to get out of my house.”
The silver-haired gentleman stood in front of Brian unmoving.
“Mr. Vale. We are here to help you. We know about the thing in your house.”
Brian blinked. How in the world would they know anything about what had been going on in his house? Had they been spying on him? He didn’t know the answer to that question and at the moment didn’t care. Things were getting too weird for his comfort so he opted for the better safe than sorry route.
“Listen, I don’t know what it is that you think you know or why you have been stalking me and my family but I’m not buying what you’re selling. So you have about thirty seconds to…”
“People are seeing things, aren’t they?” the young woman said. Her big brown eyes gave Brian pause. Maybe it was because she didn’t look as threatening as the tall man. Maybe it was because she was a female. Maybe it was both. He wasn’t sure. He wanted to listen to her though. What she was saying was interesting and she might bring some clarity to all the insanity that had been happening.
“How could you possibly know that? Why are you following me and my family?”
This time, the slender man’s face softened.
“We haven’t been following you. Believe me when I say that. We have… experience in dealing with these kinds of things.”
A young bearded gentlemen holding open the screen door broke into the exchange.
“We have a way of tracking these… phenomena. Before you ask, it would be a rather long explanation that would just confuse you more. Just know that when it activated, we knew.”
The three strangers stood in his doorway, the slender man having made his way into the threshold. If they wanted to hurt him, they could have simply bum-rushed him through the door. They didn’t. They stood there, waiting.
“What is going here? How do you know so much if you haven’t been following us? And… what is ‘it’ that is in my basement?”
The three of them passed glances back and forth between one another.
“We can explain that later,” said the young lady. “But first we have to d
eal with it.”
Brian exhaled. He felt as if he was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. If that was the case, there was nothing he could do about it and it doubtless going to get weirder from this point onward.
He let his arms fall to his sides.
“It’s in the basement,” he said, waving them with both hands into the direction of the kitchen.
Everyone looked towards the kitchen.
“Sebastian. Do you want me to go down with you?” the young lady inquired.
“No. No, I will take care of this. But be ready in case things go in a direction I didn’t anticipate.”
Amanda and Tyler nodded their assent. Sebastian turned towards the hallway that led down to the kitchen, breathing a heavy sigh. What he was about to face was not only dark but dangerous. A part of him that felt a tinge of pity for Mr. Vale. He glanced at him for a moment and saw the confusion and the fear. It made him angry. Not at Mr. Vale but at the whole idea that something like this was happening to people who had no idea how to cope with it. They were innocent and innocent victims being abused always upset Sebastian.
With a slow pace, he walked towards the kitchen. It didn't take long for the broken glass scattered on the kitchen floor to come into view. Something had transpired and he would have to find out what after he dealt with the problem. He looked back down towards the front door. Mr. Vale and Tyler were standing near the door. Amanda was on his heels. There was a silent understanding between him and his family. Mr. Vale was the one that was the odd man out.
A gloved hand reached out to the door that led down to the basement. The old brass handle rattled as he turned it. The door creaked open as he peered down to the first landing which was only five steps down. Coldness wafted up from the bowels of the basement.
“Help me, Lord.”
His rubber-soled leather boots made a slight squishy sound as he began to make his way down the steps into a dungeon of unknown territory but not unfamiliar. It would not have been accurate to say unfamiliar. He had been in this position before. More than once. However, each was different. They were always unpredictable, always some foreign element thrown into the situation. Yet at the same time, there was always a consistency. He knew he could do it on his own with Amanda and Tyler upstairs monitoring the situation. They'd be on call for support, watching Mr. Vale, keeping him out of Sebastian's way.
The Dark Corner Page 11
