Unspoken Fear

by Hunter Morgan

  She turned away, then back again. "And by the way. What you were thinking about a minute ago. You're wrong. I do know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel. Why the hell do you think I do this every day?" She turned and walked away.

  Noah was so stunned that he stood on the post office steps for a full minute trying to remember why he was there, and when he couldn't, he gave up, turned back around, and headed for his John Deere.

  * * *

  By the time Noah arrived back at the house with the #3 gauge wire, the staples, and the clamps Mateo needed, he had a splitting headache. He went into the house to grab a couple of aspirin out of the bottle that still sat on the windowsill in the kitchen where it had been since he was a kid. When he came back out of the kitchen onto the porch, Mattie was on the step, just sitting there, big hands in his lap. He was dressed as he always was this time of year—white T-shirt, Dickies work pants, white sneakers, and the ever-present ball cap, which hid the fact, as Noah noticed at breakfast the other day, that his hair was thinning.

  Noah's first impulse was to say hi and go on by. Mateo needed him out in the lower west field where he was mending some fencing that kept the deer out of the grapes. The easiest thing to do right now would be to keep on walking. Later, Noah could tell himself, maybe even Rachel if he had the opportunity, that he had attempted to connect with Mattie and that Mattie was still being uncooperative.

  Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to go back into the house and pour himself a glass of wine, maybe a shot of vodka. He wasn't naïve enough to think that Rachel hadn't rid the house of all the nice cabernets and shirazes before she picked him up at the DOC last week, but even a hit of cough syrup would have gone down nicely right now. His chats with Snowden and Sister Julie weren't sitting too well on his stomach.

  "Hey, Mattie." Noah sat down on the upper step beside him.

  Mattie stared straight ahead, his meaty hands pressed to his knees.

  "I saw you helped Mrs. Santori with the laundry this morning. That was nice of you."

  Mattie made no response.

  "Nothing like having socks that match." Noah stuck his feet out and tugged on the pant legs of his jeans to show off his white athletic socks. They'd come out of one of the cardboard boxes in the storage room that he'd had the guts to actually open. Once he found a few things he needed, he'd closed it up and not gone back upstairs since.

  Still no response from Mattie.

  Noah sighed and gazed out over the driveway, across the lawn. Rachel was back. He could see her, far in the distance, walking along a row of grapevines in a pink T-shirt. He'd always liked her in pink. He glanced back at Mattie, studying his face and the way his jowl sagged slightly.

  Mattie was a hard man to read, always had been, even when they were kids. He never showed much emotion, but Noah had the feeling something wasn't right. Something was troubling him. "Hey, Mattie," he said softly. "Something up, buddy?"

  Mattie looked at his hands resting on his knees.

  "Something someone said, something that happened maybe that upset you?" Noah hesitated. "Maybe it's me that's upsetting you. Me being back?"

  Mattie rose suddenly, startling Noah. He just stood there stiffly for a second, staring straight ahead his hands at his sides. Then he glanced over his shoulder in Noah's direction, not exactly making eye contact, and lumbered off in the direction of the barn.

  "You want me to follow you?" Noah asked, walking after him. "Sure. Sure, I'll come."

  Mattie didn't protest so Noah guessed it was what he wanted. He didn't say anything else as their sneakers crunched on the drive. He heard a vehicle approaching from the road and saw a panel truck; it was probably the washing machine, but Mrs. Santori was in the house; she would take care of the delivery. Noah followed Mattie into the barn, carefully closing the door behind him. Mattie was a stickler about doors, always had been. They went through another door and down the cement block steps into the cellar.

  As Rachel had told him, the area was neatly divided by six-foot-high Sheetrock walls that had been patched and painted nicely, giving an appearance very similar to the rooms in the church cellar where Mattie had lived with his father, until Jack had died in an accident at the church. Mattie had then lived there alone until Noah had gone to prison. Beyond the wall dividers he imagined were the same items that had been stored here for years: old wine casks and bottles, broken and outdated equipment, the usual things stored in barn cellars.

  "This is nice," Noah said, turning in the center of the room as he took a look around. It was cool in the cellar, and even with the two small rectangular windows and the overhead fluorescent lamps that had been wired by an electrician, the lighting was dim.

  Mattie's single bed was neatly made with a navy-blue bedspread and a stuffed green Shrek doll proudly displayed on the pillow, a gift from a little pigtailed girl, Noah suspected. Beside the bed was a nightstand with a lamp, a bottle of water, and a Bible. Mattie had never been able to learn to read, but he had always found comfort in the physical presence of a Bible. It was something his father, a deeply religious man, had impressed upon him.

  Noah glanced in Mattie's direction. "You wanted to show me your room? It's very nice down here, Mattie. It feels good. It feels very safe."

  Then he spotted Mattie's latest creation. "Goodness," he said, taking a step back, genuinely shocked. "Your collection has really grown, hasn't it?"

  Mattie had been collecting Bibles since he was a kid. The church gave them to him when they became damaged and unusable. People sometimes gave him an extra Bible they had lying around the house or one they no longer wanted. Sometimes, when folks from town went on vacation, they even brought a Bible back as a souvenir from Orlando or St. Thomas or the Grand Canyon. When he was little, Mattie had stacked the Bibles up under his bed and showed them off to anyone daring enough to follow him to the curtained-off room he shared with his father in the church basement. When he was older, he and his father had built bookshelves for them, and he had prided himself on the beautiful rows of Bibles on those bookshelves. But Mattie's books were no longer on the shelves. The Bibles were stacked on the floor waist-high. He appeared to be building something.

  The sight of the Bibles on the floor made the hair rise on the back of Noah's neck, a sudden chill seeming to fall over him. It was the weirdest feeling.

  "Whatcha doing here with your Bibles, Mattie?" Noah asked, feeling uneasy and not liking it one bit. He had no need for Bibles. No need for God. At least God had no need for him. But there was something specific about the Bibles on the floor that made him ill at ease.

  "Do you want some help arranging them? Putting them back on the shelves?" Noah picked one up and started to carry it toward one of the empty shelves, but Mattie made a guttural sound in his throat and snatched it out of his hand.

  Noah watched as Mattie carefully placed it back on one of the waist-high stacks.

  "Okay," Noah said. "That's fine. It won't hurt them to sit on the floor." He studied the stacks, nonchalantly backing up from them a step or two. "Where'd you get so many? You must have hundreds now."

  Mattie went down on both knees in his faded work pants and began to neaten up the stacks of Bibles that were already as neat as library stacks.

  Noah, now closer to the door, stood another moment longer. Mattie didn't seem now to want anything from him. Noah guessed he had just wanted him to see the Bibles. "I really like them, Mattie," he said, and then he headed up the steps and out of the barn, relieved to be back in the sunshine, out of the chill of the cellar.

  Chapter 6

  Noah sat on the edge of the bed in the little room still stacked with junk, staring at the hole in his white sock and the way his toe stuck out if he wiggled it just right. He needed to buy new socks. He had just two pairs, the pair he wore on his day of release and this pair, and nothing would please him more than to throw the prison-issue socks in the trash, but a man had to be practical. A man needed more than two pairs of socks.

  He c
ould get a pack at the old-fashioned Five and Dime in town, or at the grocery store, but it seemed silly to buy more when he knew there to be at least a dozen pairs upstairs in the boxes in the storage room. The thing was to find them; he'd have to dig through the boxes. And finding the socks would involve having to look at things in the boxes, touch things, stir up memories he just didn't know that he wanted to stir up.

  He wiggled his toe again.

  He knew there were just things in those boxes. It wasn't like he was a man who saved a lot of mementos. He didn't even know what was up there; he could be making a big deal out of nothing. He could guess what was in the box... things he noticed missing around the house. There might be nothing more innocuous there than a photo of him and Rachel in California, barely looking old enough to be allowed out of the house without their parents, and an old Dodgers ball cap. But there were other things there, he knew. A lump rose in his throat. Things that had to be there...

  He wiggled his toe.

  Debated.

  It was nearly midnight; he should have been tired. Tired? He should have been near to exhaustion. He'd worked hard today. After his visit in the barn cellar with Mattie he'd been driven by some kind of unnamed demon, pushing himself and Mateo until well after dark and past suppertime. After they had finished repairing the trellises and Mateo had gone to see to some vine-tying, Noah had started sinking holes for posts for a new row of trellises. No gas-powered auger for him, not when he had a fencepost hole digger. It wasn't like he didn't have the time. He had nothing but time.

  His arms, his legs, his back, his entire body ached from the abuse of the day. If he'd lie down, he'd probably go right to sleep. He could leave the boxes for another day.

  But he knew he wouldn't go right to sleep. He'd lie there and think. He'd think about how badly he wanted a drink right now. He'd think about the blackout he had in the field today. He'd been out only a few minutes, but he'd woken up sitting under a tree, fifty or sixty feet from where he'd been working, and had no recollection of how he'd gotten there. If he tried to sleep, he'd think about Johnny Leager, beaten to death with bricks.

  Noah pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead.

  If he lied down right now, he would think about the Marcus family and wonder how their little girl was, living in South Carolina now without her mother and father because he had murdered them.

  Noah lifted his head. "So what do you say, Chester? Do we find ourselves some socks?"

  * * *

  The dream started out pleasantly enough. Rachel felt as if she were drifting through a sunny Sunday afternoon. Even though she was alone in the dream, she could feel others around her. She could smell Mrs. Santori's fried chicken cooking in the kitchen, and she sensed Noah was somewhere around the house, puttering before supper. She was sitting on the front porch, rocking on the porch swing.

  A baby appeared in her lap. A baby boy. She didn't know if it was Isaac or Abraham. It didn't matter.

  Dreams were like that.

  In her dream, it was just her baby boy, the one she had desperately wanted. A baby who was alive in this fantasy world of her brain.

  She rocked the infant, cooed to him, one bare foot tucked beneath her. In the house, she heard a sound. At first, she didn't know what it was. She was too busy cooing at the baby, sipping a nice glass of her own pinot, listening to the ball game Noah had tuned to on his father's old radio on the porch.

  But the sound grew louder. A mechanical sound, and she realized it was the washing machine. The new washing machine Eddie had delivered today. The timeline made no sense. The dream took place long in the past, before Noah had gone to prison, when there had at least been the possibility of a baby boy. When life had been full of possibilities. This washing machine she knew was a brand new front loader. But dreams never made sense.

  Rachel rose, the sleeping baby snuggled in her arms. She padded barefoot into the house. There was no sign of Mrs. Santori, but Rachel could still smell the chicken frying; she could hear it sizzling. She felt the cool boards of the old farmhouse's wood floor on her bare feet as she walked through the kitchen toward the laundry room.

  The new washing machine was making a terrible sound as if something was stuck inside it, setting the drum off balance. "Noah!" she called.

  As she stepped into the brightly wallpapered yellow laundry room, a chill settled over her, and she instinctively tightened her grip on the baby in her arms. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

  Someone was watching her.

  She looked over her shoulder. There was no one there, no one she could see, but still, she was uneasy. She turned back toward the new, white washing machine. It still had the yellow sticker on the front that explained the energy-saving benefits of the model.

  The washing machine shook. It growled.

  Rachel felt the hair rise on the back of her neck, and she lifted the baby onto her shoulder to draw him closer. A part of her wanted to run. There was something bad here in the sunny laundry room. Something inherently evil. But she couldn't run. You never could run away from things in your dreams.

  She took a step closer. She could see the water inside the machine, see clothes tumbling, but there was something else inside...

  She took another step closer. There was something inside the machine that didn't belong there.

  That's when she realized the water was red.

  She reached out to jerk the washer door open, holding the baby with one hand, and he vanished, leaving her nothing but the little flannel blanket and the scent of him.

  Rachel cried out in anguish as the washing machine door swung open and water poured out. Only it wasn't just water. It was bloody water.

  Clothes poured out.

  Dead bodies poured out.

  The pale white bodies of her baby boys.

  The Marcuses.

  She tried to scream but found herself mute.

  The water washed over her legs and the bodies bumped into her. Thumped against the wall behind her.

  They just kept tumbling out in the gush of bloody water. Legs. Arms. Wet hair. Noah's parents. Johnny Leager.

  She drew the baby blanket over her face and screamed into it.

  Rachel sat straight up in bed, yanking the blanket off her face and throwing it aside. Panting hard, she looked around the room. She knew no one was there, and yet she thought she had felt someone there in the room just as she was waking. Felt something.

  "Just a dream," she whispered shaking, seeing nothing but the familiar but not sure she believed her own eyes. "Just a dream."

  She threw her legs over the side of the single, antique iron-post bed and stood, finding relief in the coolness of the floorboards on her bare feet. She pushed down her rumpled gray T-shirt over the waistband of the blue polka-dotted pajama pants that were so old they were nearly transparent.

  She had to get out of the bedroom. Just for a second. She'd go downstairs and get a drink of water. Once she was fully awake, she'd realize it was just a bad dream. There was no one in her bedroom or in the laundry room. There was nothing inherently evil possessing the washing machine Noah had bought today. It was really a nice washing machine. A nice thing for him to do.

  Still feeling a little shaky, she opened the bedroom door and walked out into the hall. Her heart tripped in her chest at the sight of Noah seated on the floor at the top of the stairs. He was just sitting on the floor in his boxers and T-shirt and a pair of socks, his legs sprawled. Chester lay on the floor beside him.

  "Were you just in my room?" Rachel snapped, wrapping her arms around her waist as if she needed to protect herself from him.

  He looked up at her, seeming nearly as startled to see her as she was to see him. "N... no. Of course not."

  She walked down the hall toward him, eyeing him suspiciously. "What the hell are you doing up here in the middle of the night?" She looked him up and down. "In your underwear." She looked toward Mallory's bedroom door suddenly, her heart giving a little trip. "You
haven't been—"

  "Sweet God, no, Rachel." He ran his hand through his hair. "What kind of monster do you think I am?" He looked up at her and then down again. "Never mind. Don't answer that." He gestured lamely at the stairwell across the hall from where he sat. "I couldn't sleep, so I came upstairs to get some more clothes out of the boxes. I just... I couldn't bring myself to..." He groaned aloud and grew quiet.

  Rachel stared at him for a moment and then walked over to where he sat, leaned against the wall, and slowly sank to the floor until she sat beside him. They weren't touching, but her knee was only inches from his.

  After a moment of silence, he glanced at her. "What are you doing up in the middle of the night?"

  "Nightmare," she whispered. Then she chuckled, though she wasn't able to find much humor. She could still smell the scent of her baby boy on her hands, and she could still feel the presence of the evil that had been in that room in her dream. "Involving that fancy smancy new washing machine you had delivered today."

  He tugged on the toe of his sock, which she noticed had a hole. "I've never heard of a nightmare with a washing machine involved."