The Darkest Time of Night

by Jeremy Finley

  I continued feeling along the wall, noting a jut-out of shutters. I felt a door handle at my waist and shook it frantically, finding it locked.

  You are going to die here.

  Keep moving. Don’t stand still. Think of William.

  I felt along the storefronts. Even the abandoned buildings’ shutters were locked tight. I passed the empty laundromat and approached the general store. Please let there be a light on, please let someone still be inside.

  I was met again with tightly closed shutters and a dead-bolted door. I leaned my forehead against the wood. This was it. Climbers was the last of the stores on the row. I didn’t dare cross the street to the other businesses, all of which were already closed.

  My skin started to hurt. The temperature must have dropped again. I wanted to sit down, huddle in my coat against the elements. But I knew I needed to keep moving, keep the blood circulating. How long before hypothermia would set in—?

  The roar of an engine and two blaring lights momentarily shone through the snow at the end of the boardwalk. Gears shift loudly and ice crunched.

  “Wait!” I cried out, daring to hurry alongside what remained of the wall. I slipped a bit and caught myself on the edge of a shutter. “Wait!”

  The headlights began to diminish as the truck went in reverse. I stepped out away from the wall and waved my arms, scuffling a few inches along the wood floor.

  I misjudged, and dropped off the edge.

  Waves of pain shuddered through my kneecap as I landed. The headlights were now pointed in another direction, and I could barely make out the cab of the truck. I cried out as I forced myself to stand and shuffle through the foot of snow now on the ground over to the truck window, slamming my palm hard against the glass.

  “Jesus Christ!” Said a muffled voice from within.

  “Wait!” I whimpered.

  “Good God, who’s out there?”

  The door opened and a man in a red-checked hat with flaps over his ears looked out at me, astonished, with ice-blue eyes under the rim of his hat.

  “Joe!”

  “Miss Lynn?” said the proprietor of Climbers, sliding out of the truck. He helped me stay upright as I hissed in pain, holding my knee.

  “What in God’s name are you doing out here?” He put my arm around his shoulder and helped me limp around the plow of the truck and over to the passenger door. He practically lifted me into the seat, and hurried back around.

  He got in and shut the door, turning up the heat. “What are you doing?”

  My eyes closed in pain. “I had to see if any of the stores were open.”

  “Why? What in the world were you needing that badly that you had to come out in this storm?”

  “I needed to find a phone.”

  “And you thought you’d take a stroll? That was a pretty damn stupid thing to do. I closed up hours ago, but left some propane tanks here that I needed. If I hadn’t needed to come back so desperately, you would have been up shit creek, lady. Have you lost your mind?”

  I slowly looked to him. “I found my grandson. My friend has gone to get help. I won’t bother telling you everything that’s happened, but I have to try to get to him.”

  “You found your boy?”

  I nodded. Joe leaned his wrist on the steering wheel. “Well, where is he, then? Why isn’t he with you?”

  “Because he didn’t remember me.”

  When he didn’t respond, I cautiously turned back to him. He was staring out the windshield. “He didn’t remember?”

  “What’s happening in this town? Why can’t my grandson remember me? Why do you not have a memory? Why does Sarah up at the inn not have a memory? And why would the police go to such lengths to get us out of town?”

  “The police?” The lines around his eyes creased.

  “I found my grandson with other children at the park, and some woman boarded him on a bus and called for police. Some men showed up and took me and my friend Roxy into custody, and then we were told we needed to leave immediately. They clearly had other plans for us, and Roxy got us away. Now the police are looking for us.”

  “Argentum doesn’t have a police department. We have one officer, Chief Max, but he’s a good ten years older than me. And there’s Milford, but he’s not even full time. Was it those two old boys who took you into custody?”

  I hugged myself, feeling suddenly colder. “The men I met were not old. These were young men, in dark uniforms.”

  Joe muttered a curse under his breath. “I’ve seen them before. Only once. I worried this might happen, when you showed up asking about your missing grandson. I tried to discourage you. I hoped you and your friend would leave. I guess you’ve probably figured out you’re not the first who’s come here looking for someone.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it? Who left that warning note in my room.”

  He sighed. “Like I said, I tried to discourage you.”

  “Whoever came here looking before … did the police take them away too?”

  He turned the wipers to a faster setting as the snow began to pile up on the windshield. “It was a while ago. I don’t know what happened to them. They were a couple, I guess. Young. Glasses. Tried to act natural. Said they were new to town. Wanted to know if I knew other new arrivals, so they could join a ‘newcomers’ group. Once they warmed up to me, they started showing me pictures of some people they were looking for. Said they were some kind of researchers or something.”

  I swallowed. “You called the police?”

  “No. I didn’t recognize any of the people in their photographs, and they left. They made the rounds, like you did. Not four hours later, I saw them hauled out of Scotty’s over there, by some cops I’d never seen before and two others wearing suits. I met up with some of the old boys at the bar later, and they said some officers just came in and seized them. The regulars at Scotty’s thought they were out-of-town cops with some agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which explained the black suits.”

  If it were possible, I felt even colder. “What happened to them?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know. Honestly, didn’t think much about it until you came along. I got a bad feeling … you seemed so nice. Not like that couple, you could tell they were only a bunch of academics. They never even said why they were looking for those people, never said they were missing. But it started to add up a bit after you left that first time. I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Are you afraid of these … officers … too?”

  “I don’t even know who they are. And even if I did, am I afraid enough to turn you over to them? The answer is no.”

  “Because Sarah up at the inn certainly is afraid. She called one of them to let them know my friend left town. I’m sure they’re back at the inn now, looking for me.”

  “Good God, Sarah.” He whistled. “Nice girl, but as nervous as a whore in church. Forgive the language. The medical center helped her find a good job, and I think she even dates some nurse at the hospital. She brought him into the store once. How the world would she even know those poser cops?”

  “They didn’t seem like posers to me. And I’m worried to death about my friend, who drove off to find help. And my grandson; I know he’s here. Could it be that he’s a patient at that the medical center you’ve mentioned, just like you were?”

  Joe exhaled through his nose. “I saw a few kids when I was in the hospital. Not many, though. You said your grandson was put on the bus by a woman? Was she a lady who looked like she had at least twenty years on us? Miss Cliff her name?”

  “Yes! That’s what William called her. And before she called the police or security or whatever they are, she told me to leave now. Like she was afraid for me.”

  “Verna Cliff is not the friendliest of folks in town, and she’s a closet alcoholic. But she’s in charge of the small day care for the hospital kids. Even though she’s got to be in her late eighties—shoot, maybe even nineties—she still lives on her own. She actual
ly stays a few houses down from me.”

  “Joe,” I began, “I already have risked my best friend’s life. I cannot fathom the idea of getting someone else getting in trouble. I promise you, I will tell no one that you took me to her house. But I would be forever grateful if you would. She tried to warn me. I have to find out why.”

  His response was a downshift of the gears, and the truck glided into the snow, the plow slowly descending. “If it weren’t this nasty outside, we’d be there in five minutes. I’ll get us there in seven.”

  “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Given my ornery tendencies, I can only imagine I must have been quite the troublemaker in whatever young life I had before this one, so I really don’t mind kicking up the dirt once in a while. Even though that couple was strange, I got a bad feeling when those cops arrested them. I don’t like that it happened to you too, especially now knowing that you, and maybe those other two, came here to find somebody they loved. Maybe I’m just jealous, because no one ever came to find me.”

  “You don’t remember anything? At all?”

  “Blank as a clean chalkboard. Sometimes a word or a first name will sound somewhat familiar, but that’s it.”

  “And your whole life it’s been that way?”

  “My whole life. I woke up in White Crest as a teenager, not knowing anything. That first year, they gave me the name Ethan. But it never felt right. Then one of the nurse’s names was Joseph, and it just felt right to me, felt authentic—more so than Ethan. So I took that name, and forty some years later, I’m Joe the snowplow guy.”

  “I‘m not sure how old you are, but I’m guessing you’re about my age. You must have friends, family, somewhere.”

  “I assume I do, but where? No one ever came looking, and I have no memories before White Crest. The hospital said I was found by the side of the interstate, lying in a ditch. No injuries besides a knot on the back of my head. No car accident, nothing. Who can say? I don’t match any missing-persons cases in Colorado or anywhere else that I could find. Seems like to me someone wanted to get rid of me, or I was involved in something bad and ended up dumped. Who knows? Good doctors up there at the medical center, though. They taught me everything to act like a human being again. It all came back quickly, and for that I’m grateful. I’m sure your boy’s getting good treatment. How it is you knew he would be here?”

  “It’s a long story. Let’s just say an old friend thought he might be in this town. But I’ll be honest with you: I had no idea there was even a hospital here. And how can a hospital even exist in this remote of an area?”

  “It’s too small to be a true hospital. Amnesia is their specialty. Maybe I was a mean kid who got drunk and blacked out and conked my head. Again, who knows? I owe a lot to the good people up there. And I never had to pay a dime. I guess they assumed I didn’t have health insurance, since I didn’t even have a driver’s license. Some of us need to even be retaught how to read, how to walk. I’m lucky, I guess; I picked up everything pretty quickly.”

  “That’s where my grandson has to be. I have to find a way to get in. I should just bypass going to see the teacher. Could you just drive me to the medical center?”

  “I’d take you right now, but you have to have a code to get in after hours, and the staff is mostly gone this time of night, especially in this weather. And they change the code from time to time; there’s a lot of turnover. Miss Cliff has the current code, that’s for sure. I’ve been gone from White Crest for a long time, and honestly, I’m in no hurry to go back. The loneliness, the confusion, the anger, you can’t imagine what it’s like to have no memory. And honestly—most of the patients don’t leave. They can’t. They can barely function. Can’t comprehend light switches, microwaves, even straws. Sarah’s the only one I’ve ever known in the past couple of years who could even hold a job.”

  “So it’s not only memory problems the patients have?” I thought of how damaged William may be. If I could relearn, so could he.…

  “Oh, it’s memory problems, all right. They can’t remember their past, and many of them can’t remember what happened yesterday. It’s like dementia, I think. It’s awful.”

  “Why would my grandson be there? Be in this town?” I clenched my hands together. “How did he get here?”

  “Can I ask what happened to him?”

  “I don’t know if you’d even believe me if I told you. The last time anyone saw my grandson—William is his name—was in the forest behind our house. He simply vanished. My husband … is a politician. We all feared he’d been kidnapped.”

  “Obviously, I never get to see the news. Now I wish I did. And where do you live again?”

  “Tennessee. Nashville.”

  He whistled low. “William disappeared from Tennessee and now he’s in the Rocky Mountains? My God…”

  We drove in silence for a while through the growing snowdrifts. You’re wondering where you came from, I thought as I glanced at Joe’s puzzled face. Maybe somebody did want to find you.

  Joe slowly applied the brakes. “Here we are.”

  He pulled up next to a row of houses covered in the falling snow. “That’s Miss Cliff’s house, with the light on. My house is only three down. I’ll walk you up, introduce you.”

  “Joe, I’m so sorry, but I have another huge favor to ask you.”

  “Ask away.”

  “I’m very worried about my friend Roxy. I told you she drove off out of town to try and find a phone to call my husband. Would you mind looping back to see if she made it out OK? I wouldn’t ask, but you seem quite capable of navigating the snow.”

  “I start the clearing on the main drag, so I have to go that way anyway,” he said with a smirk. “But I have a feeling that you don’t want me to be there when you talk to Verna.”

  “It will be easier to turn me away if I have an escort. She can’t leave me outside in this.”

  “Well, she might. She’s pretty tough. Even though those kids could blow on her and she’d fall over, I’ve seen her tear into them from time to time. Well, if she does kick you out, or she won’t answer the door, go down three houses, mine is 333, the one with the dead plant out front. Keys underneath that. Snow’s calming a bit, but it could pick up anytime. Don’t you let her toss you out if the snow kicks back up; you could have died back there. Anyhow, I’ll be back. I’ll take the road all the way to the interstate to make sure your friend isn’t in a ditch somewhere. If you’re not at my house when I get back from my rounds, I’ll snoop around and see if you made it into her house.”

  “God bless you, Joe,” I said, opening the door.

  “Three houses down, Miss Lynn!” he pointed.

  I gave him a grateful wave and stepped down, realizing the snow was still fierce but not as blinding as before. Thankfully, there was a light on in the front room. Mustering up my most pathetic face, I reached out and rang the doorbell. When no one answered, I knocked on the glass. The hallway beyond remained dark.

  I shivered, walking down the porch and crunching through the snow to approach a bay window. The curtains were parted, and I could see legs propped up in a recliner, a hand laying limp over the armrest.

  I rapped on the glass. When the hand didn’t even flinch, I pounded with my fist.

  The teacher from the park sat up suddenly and looked around, disoriented. I knocked again, and the woman turned to the window, her wig slightly askew. She stared at me as I waved desperately. Miss Cliff’s mouth gaped a little, and muttered a series of curse words that I could easily make out.

  She pulled the wooden lever on the chair and slowly climbed out, glaring as she shuffled into the front hall. I hurried around to the porch once again and waited by the door. The light in the hall came on, and the curtains on the small window in the door parted.

  “Are you insane?” she asked through the glass.

  “Please, I need to speak with you.”

  “How in God’s name did you end up here?” The woman’s wizened eyes narrowed, bli
nking rapidly.

  “Please, it’s very cold.”

  “You need to get back in your car and drive away.”

  “I don’t have a car. I have nowhere else to go.” I forced a dramatic trembling of my lips.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  I whispered a silent prayer of thanks as I heard the dead bolt turn.

  “The only reason I’m even letting you in is because there’s no earthly way anyone saw you come here. Get in here quickly. Jesus, you’d think the wife of a senator would know better than to come out in the middle of this mess.”

  I was so astonished, I stopped pulling back my hood midway. “You know who I am?”

  “I didn’t at first,” she said groggily, the ice in her glass clinking as she moved across the runner lying across the wood floors in the front hall. As she entered the adjoining living room, she drew together the already small openings in the curtains.

  She slowly turned around. “But you’re her, aren’t you. You’re Roseworth’s wife.”

  “You know who I am. You have to help me get to William. Please.”

  “I don’t have to help you do anything, lady.”

  She went to a decanter on a side table and refilled her drink. Her hand shook a bit as she poured the bourbon to the rim. “And he goes by the name of Al … Alan … now.”

  My God, she’s completely drunk. “I don’t understand. If you know who I am, why did you put William on that bus?”

  “I didn’t know who were you were then,” she said, moving with the speed of a turtle over to a footstool covered in magazines. “And I tried to warn you. But when you were making such a scene, you cooked your own goose. Had to call security. Dammit!” Her foot caught the edge of the thick rug and she teetered, careful not to spill a drop from her drink. I instinctively reached out, fearing one fall would mean the end of the woman. But she righted herself, reached down, and messily slid the magazines on the top to the floor. “There. That’s how I found out.”

  “The Senator’s Nightmare,” the cover of People magazine shouted, featuring a picture of my husband and our family from the news conference, with William’s picture in a smaller square beneath them.