Anson and Nils exited the car when Deborah hopped out, hurrying to the low cream colored brick building. Lights lit the walkway from the parking lot to the building, leaving few shadows on the steps. The parking lot was darker with large swaths of inky shadows between the safety circles of brightness from the tall lights that lit the lot.
I followed the others into the building. This one was one of the smaller rest areas, just a big lobby in white tile and two bathrooms along the back. Maps hung on one wall and the other had a row of windows. A group of benches had been placed in the middle. I’d have sat, but that would have required I turn my back to the bathroom doors and I had no desire to do so. Instead I leaned against the wall with the map.
My bladder added pressure, reminding me that I needed to go and Charlotte was still a fair ways away. But I couldn’t.
Several trucks were parked in the darkened lot outside, but ours was the only car. While there were plenty of other cars rushing along the highway outside, they offered only the faintest white noise in the background. Deborah would be the only other person in the restroom with me, in a place where I wouldn’t be able to see everything. There was no way I could go in there.
Anson and Nils came out and milled around. Deborah didn’t reappear. I started to get antsy. I was in a place where others could relieve themselves and I badly wanted to, but I knew I couldn’t go in. I tried to keep my fidgeting to a minimum.
“You think you should check on her?” Nils asked looking at me.
I didn’t want to, but how could I explain that I’d nearly died in a rest area bathroom and was phobic about them?
I nodded. I didn’t need to go into a stall and use it, placing myself in the vulnerable position of being caught, quite literally, with my pants down. I just had to go in and look for Deborah and find out what was taking her so long.
I slipped inside.
Tiny tiles that had once been white and were now cream and gray lined the floors. Larger tiles in the same cream lined the walls halfway up. Pale off-white paint covered the rest. In a corner someone had scribbled a name but it had faded or been partially washed off. Four sinks covered the wall on my right, with two hand dryers at the end. An empty paper towel dispenser hung next to them.
Eight stalls with beige dividers were on my left. I bent down. Only one pair of feet towards the end.
“Deborah?” I called. I didn’t yell. I didn’t whisper.
My voice sounded too loud in the room. It was like calling in an empty room, as if there were no feet beneath one of the doors.
One of the faucets dripped.
Just once.
I backed up towards the wall, my heart in my throat, burning and aching as if someone were pulling it up and out from my body.
I thought I heard a step on the floor.
I brought a hand to my face. I didn’t want to look, but couldn’t not look.
I should run. Tried to get my feet to move, but they wouldn’t. I had no control. I was lucky urine wasn’t streaming down my leg because my bladder suddenly felt it was about to burst and I had so little control of anything I didn’t know why it wasn’t happening.
I don’t know how long I stood like that.
Long enough that Anson and Nils came looking for me.
“What’s going on?” Anson asked.
“I see her feet, but she didn’t answer,” I said. “I thought I heard something but I couldn’t see anything.”
Nils gave me a long look. Probably taking in my shaking hands. No doubt my face was pale. I was shivering all over, chilled to the bone though it wasn’t cold in the restroom. Rather it was comfortable.
“Deborah?” Anson called louder than me. If anyone were in the men’s room they’d hear him.
No response.
“Second to the last stall,” I said.
Nils looked under the door.
“Maybe you should open it?” he said. There was something pleading in his eyes but also sorrow. Like he knew I was terrified of what I’d find, but he had to make me do it. How would it look if a boss burst in on an employee when she was in a stall in the public restroom?
Braver now that I wasn’t alone, I walked towards the stall. I paused to hit all of the others, opening doors, making sure they were all empty. Only Deborah’s didn’t open.
I didn’t want to crawl down on the floor. Instead I went into the stall next to hers and climbed on the toilet. I kept my purse at an angle so the door couldn’t close, locking me alone in the stall.
I reached my hand up, fingers curling over the top of the stall, not unaware that this was exactly what the creature had done at Steely Woods.
I stood up, imagining my head rising over the top, the brown hairs on my head visible first and then the roundness of my skull and the pale cream of my forehead, lighter than usual because of the harsh light and the terror I was still experiencing. I would look to Deborah not unlike the creature had looked to me that night in Steely Woods.
Deborah leaned against the far cubical divider, her head down. Red pooled from her lower body, a tiny bit of splatter had landed on her pants which were just above her knees, barely hanging on. One drop had landed on the floor to the side.
I screamed as I dropped off the toilet, throwing myself out of the stall.
“What?” Nils asked.
“911.” I couldn’t say anything else. I could hardly breathe. I needed air. I needed to get out of there. I rushed through the restroom and out to the main room, gasping. The lights were on, but I was alone. No one came in. I saw a trucker by his cab, smoking. Maybe talking on his cell phone. Nothing else.
I wanted to run out, run away, but darkness covered the parking area.
I heard a faucet drip, loudly, like I was in a bathroom. I whirled, letting out another gasp. My chest tightened further squeezing out every last bit of air. I needed to scream again and again but without air I could barely whisper. I was going to die.
Something banged and crashed. Swearing.
I pictured the creature coming after Nils and Anson, tearing them apart, leaving them for dead before coming out after me. I needed to leave.
Something screeched across the floor. Claws against tile.
Voices.
Coming closer.
I was pressed back against the wall, no longer even trying to breathe, as if by not breathing, I wouldn’t be seen by anything, supernatural or otherwise. How could it have happened, so silently? How could Deborah not have heard something?
Nils came out of the bathroom with Anson. Nils was on the phone, telling someone where he was. Anson looked pale. His hands shook as he rushed out of the building, pausing near the entrance. I followed. I didn’t want to be alone at the rest stop.
Not again.
11
Traci: September Now
The wait for the police and the medics was interminable. I really needed to use the bathroom. Nils guided me into the men’s room and stood watch at the door so someone else couldn’t come in. Anson waited near the door of the women’s room in order to turn anyone else away.
I finished what I needed to do quickly, leaving the stall door slightly ajar. If Nils noticed or if he thought that was odd, he said nothing. He’d probably think it had to do with Deborah.
I hurried out of the men’s room barely noticing that it was a mirror image of the women’s room. No faucets dripped. No odd sounds, although it smelled of ammonia and bleach so strongly that I even smelled it through my stuffed up nose. Or maybe I felt it rather than smelled it.
I hardly looked at my face, which was blotchy red and white, red from tear stains, white from pallor. It reminded me of the single red dot of blood that had landed on the tile floor in the other bathroom, the blood that had belonged to Deborah. If I had been able to keep myself together, might she still have been alive?
Medics were arriving as I came out of the men’s room. Anson directed them to the women’s room and they hurried on in. A police officer followed and paused to talk to Anson.
The truck driver that I had seen smoking was looking over at the building. He was clearly talking to someone on a cell phone because when he moved into the light, I saw his lips moving.
Another police officer arrived. He spoke to Nils and me. I stood mute, not even sure what he was asking. Nils’ words were equally unintelligible to me. I felt as if my brain had shut off any semblance of communication. I saw things. I knew things. I heard and felt things. I even smelled things a little bit but I couldn’t process them with words. It was all sensation for me at the moment.
The police officer looked at me and said something before leaving. I probably looked blank.
The truck driver moved out of the light and started for his truck. Another man got out of the sleeper section of his cab and looked around. The man who had been on the phone started the truck, the loud low purr of sound. The squeaky hiss of air as the brakes came off.
I felt one of the police officers brush by me as he hurried outside to see who was leaving.
I wanted to tell him it didn’t matter. I’d have seen a man, a human, coming out of the restroom. I had seen no one. There were no other exits. The bathroom had a single window, narrow and high, too small for a grown man to leave through.
I didn’t say anything. My mouth couldn’t move. I had thoughts, too many of them, but no words.
Everything was a blur and a haze and even the real people, the people around me, started to fade out.
The lobby darkened like someone had turned off the peripheral lights. I wanted to move, to find out who had turned off the lights, but I stood frozen. Voices became a low buzz and then faded out until I was alone with my thoughts and imaginings.
I was so tired.
I got cold, so cold.
It was hard to breathe.
“Are you going to tell them?” a voice said. A girl’s voice, perhaps high school.
I didn’t know what she meant.
“About me. And you? Or are you worried they’ll think you’re crazy?”
I had nothing to say to that. The voice was right. I was worried they’d think I was crazy.
“Maybe they’ll even think you did it!” Laughter then, around me.
I tried to shake my head, clear it out.
“Let them catch the guy leaving. Who knows what else he’s done,” the voice said. “Don’t say you didn’t see anyone. Say you didn’t think anyone had gone in there. They won’t believe you anyway.”
I wanted to ask who was speaking but my tongue stuck to my mouth.
I opened my eyes, realizing only then that I’d somehow sunk into a light sleep. A dream.
Police officers walked through the rest stop building, their steps purposeful. Nils sat next to me, Anson on his other side. They both looked as confused and horrified as I felt.
Nils looked at me, met my eyes. “I’m so sorry I insisted you go in there and find her,” he said.
I shrugged. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Deborah was dead, murdered practically in front of us and we’d been able to do nothing. My stomach rolled. How did one stop a murderous spirit?
I’d thought about that now and again, but Deborah’s murder suddenly brought the question close to home. I was certain that she—for some reason I knew the ghost was a she—had killed Deborah because of me. Maybe it was the dream, but maybe the dream wasn’t exactly a dream.
Or maybe, I worried, I was just going crazy. I had seen ghosts, lived in fear, and now…
Now, I was hearing voices.
Nils shifted beside me but I didn’t look. I didn’t want to see the worry in his eyes, worry not for what had happened to Deborah, but for me and what had happened to me.
12
Lucy: Summer Then
Alma pushed Lucy along through the woods. The sun was still up, but the sky was beginning to pink. Time no longer held meaning for Lucy, though she felt her body clench at the sun falling because so many of the men her sister insisted she allow to use her came with the failing light.
Alma didn’t normally bring her to the woods, where the evergreens grew tall and the air smelled of life and death, the aroma of pine pitch and decaying vegetation. The birds fell silent as they passed noisily through the trees.
“Where?” Lucy asked. She’d stopped trying to engage her sister in any conversation. Anything she said had a snap to it that would cause Alma to slap her, or, in her anger, insist Lucy service even more men.
Lucy had taken to smoking Alma’s cigarettes when she could get them. That annoyed her sister further because cigs were expensive, or so Alma said. Lucy hadn’t ever purchased them. It had been over a month since she’d gone out, gone to the post office or gone anywhere even in town to see what was happening. She didn’t want to be seen.
Alma either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Lucy knew she was dying and her sister didn’t care.
“Don’t worry about it,” Alma said. “You’ll do what you always do when you get there. This guy likes it to be in his home.”
Lucy didn’t like that. Didn’t like it one bit.
“You’ll stay outside so I know how to get home?” she asked, her voice small like a child’s.
Alma didn’t answer or if she did the words were lost in the air.
Though it was summer and in the sun it was warm, beneath the trees it was cool, particularly when there was a breeze. Lucy shivered.
They passed behind the town. Lucy smelled old bacon and coffee from the café though the trees kept her from seeing it. She heard a dog bark and though she heard a car pass but that was so faint she couldn’t be certain.
Alma hurried now.
Lucy’s feet slowed, even as her sister tried to go faster. For her transgression, Lucy received another shove, one that nearly pushed her over.
“He doesn’t want you to be late. He’ll be angry if you’re late and I don’t want to think about what will happen then,” Alma said.
Lucy shuddered. Alma was afraid of this man. Lucy was going to have to be with a man that frightened Alma. Nothing frightened her sister who was as resilient as they came. Lucy had no idea what kind of person would frighten her.
Her stomach knotted tighter than ever. It was always in a knot and she always felt as if she was just a breath away from vomiting. She didn’t think she was pregnant because there always seemed to be blood. How could a child live through that?
Alma turned towards town and they had passed behind it, a spirit avoiding the eyes of the living. Their destination was just on the edge of town, where Lucy heard goats off in the distance and a chicken clucked.
The house they were going to was a narrow thing, built by hand and put together with wood from here and there giving it the look of an eyesore. It was bigger than the trailer, though, and Lucy noted the power lines that connected it to the world, something she and Alma didn’t have. They had the generator salvaged and pampered and serviced by the men that Lucy in turn serviced. Before that, the generator had cost money.
Alma knocked on the door, painted in deep blue, unlike the browns and grays of the wood that lined the house. A window was next to the door but the light was wrong so Lucy couldn’t see in.
A man with a beard came to the door. He filled the frame, his brown hair that curled up around his skull nearly touching the top. His beard was long and dark. The hands that held out the money, a thick pile of bills that Lucy saw were at least twentys, were filthy with grease. There was a line along one side of his neck as if he’d wiped sweat there and the grease had stayed.
Closer, Lucy smelled motor oil. The man wore brownish work pants. Lucy wasn’t sure whether they were dirty or if they came that color. His short-sleeved shirt was a dull cream, creased and stained with gray splotches.
“That her?” the man asked.
Alma nodded.
“I’ll be near town for when she can come home. She’s not sure she knows the way,” Alma said quietly, her head not meeting the man’s eyes.
“It’ll be awhile.” His
voice was low and grumbled like a bear in a cave.
Lucy tried to hold down her fear.
Alma backed up and pulled Lucy closer to the stoop that created a small entry to the house.
Lucy entered.
The place was dark. Inside the main room was paneled. There was a big radio on a table, made of wood, probably pine, that looked handmade. A sofa sat against the wall where the window was.
A door led into another room that Lucy thought was a kitchen. She heard the hum of a refrigerator.
A hall led off to the right.
The man led her to the one bedroom. Across the way, she saw the mismatched tile of a bathroom that held a toilet, a sink, and a shower. What luxury.
He undressed her and didn’t speak as he ran his hands over her body, squeezing her breasts that were always tender from men’s touch. His beard trailed down her skin, once so soft, and made it itch. Lucy pushed away tears, closing her eyes, pretending to be somewhere else, anywhere else but with this huge man.
When she thought he was nearly done, his hands wrapped around her neck and he began to squeeze.
Lucy thrashed, trying to pull them away. She couldn’t breathe. He was going to kill her.
Her heart raced. She began to sweat.
The tears she had fought came to her eyes, making her angry because she didn’t want to cry in front of him.
Then she got really angry because she was going to die before making Alma pay for what she’d done to her. Lucy wanted to scream and she thrashed harder, kicking the man in the side.
And with that, he laughed. A long low chuckled as if he were pleased.
The hands loosened from around her neck.
Lucy sucked in a breath.
“I love a fighter,” he said.
Lucy gasped a few more times.
The Haunting of Steely Woods Page 5
