Isolates? No Michael, a raccoon or opossum probably, or some other brand of nocturnal dweller whose wide peering eyes fell into the yellow glow of the houselight next to the back door.
Despite the early hour I decided to try and go to bed. I figured it was possible that Christine might still be up, although it was highly doubtful that she'd be in any kind of forgiving mood just yet, which suited me just fine; my mind was still racing like mad, and not quite into harmonizing right now. I peeked into Jessica's room and found her bed empty, the sheets in a bunch at the footboard. I panicked for a brief moment but assured myself—prayed, actually—that my king bed would be filled to capacity. I paced down the hall and stuck my head into the bedroom. Indeed, Christine, Jessica, and Page were all sprawled out on the mattress, curled into sleeping positions. Someone was snoring lightly. Probably Page.
It was possible that Christine would wake up overcome with guilt—that come morning she would take me in her arms and plant apologetic kisses all over me. Then again, she might not. So I had no choice but to plan for the worst and hope for the best. We've had lesser arguments in the past that'd led to two or three days of resentment and pointless brooding. Some were my fault, others hers. This time no one carried any blame; our little world seemed to have been rocked by an invisible third party plunging in from out of nowhere. So who knew what lie ahead? I simply wanted to get it all over with, try to find a way to offset my sadness, my frustration, even if it meant making a first move.
I considered waking her up.
Something told me this wouldn't be a good idea.
So instead I undressed, showered, shaved, and took two ibuprofen to help chase away a looming headache. I'd had enough excitement to fill two hard days, and that set the cranial hammers into motion. By the time I crawled into (Jessica's) bed my head was pounding, assuring me that sleep wouldn't come anytime soon. My mind raced in nutty circles, playing out the last two days like a bad motion picture. Phillip Deighton. Isolates. Sacrifices. Old Lady Zellis. Jessica. Ghosts. Golden lights. Fireflies. I'm pregnant. Christine. Fuck you, Michael.
And with this came images of pure anxiety-born speculation, Rosy Deighton caught in the jaws of a dark monster, her hand torn free as spouts of blood paralleled her terror-filled screams with horrific sights and smells; she, trying to break free while sharp teeth rendered chunks of flesh from her body, a strong swiping claw cleaving half her face away in one monstrous swoop. Then, Neil Farris: the man whose home and livelihood I've come to replace. I pictured him: writhing on the ground, his chewed ankle bleeding out on the pavement in buckets, waiting for help that would come all too late. I recalled my first conversation with Lou Scully. He'd said that a stray dog had made meat of Farris's ankle, that Ashborough's doctor had been taken to the Ellenville Medical Center but was declared DOA. Then the widow Farris, she confirmed this event. Exactly.
As if it had been rehearsed.
I shook away the thought. This was clearly my over-tired mind creating an ominous scenario, one befitting of my growing paranoia.
Rosy. Neil. Isolates.
Yet, outside of Page, I couldn't remember seeing a single dog—free or leashed—in this neighborhood since we moved in.
I shuddered. What difference did it make? Neil Farris was dead, and as a direct result I owned a fantastic practice brimming with patients. On the outside it would appear that I'd been at the right place at the right time; me, I couldn't decide as to whether I'd been blessed or cursed.
One man's bane is another's benefit.
After an hour of mind-spinning, I got up and headed back downstairs. The clock in the living room chimed eleven. I made a peanut-butter sandwich (the kitchen still carried the aroma of coffee; I figured it would stay this way until I set a mop with ammonia to the floor), grabbed a glass of milk and headed down through the hall into my office.
There was a small cork board in the reception area pinned with various messages and notes to myself. Nothing was of great importance, primarily the phone numbers of patients who'd left messages on the answering machine earlier in the day. I looked down at the machine; the message light was dark. Nice.
My office was as quiet as a morgue, and I took to my desk where I began to eat and rearrange some papers there. I'd rigged the lights in here so that the switch on the wall would trigger only the desk lamp. This created a nice concentrated glow that traveled no further than the confines of my work area, enabling me to peer out the floor-to-ceiling windows even at night. The porchlight alongside the back door was lit, splaying a dull yellow glow across the expanse of grass that reached all the way to the edge of the woods. For a moment I imagined myself as some 19th century muse working by candlelight on his most recent future-classic narrative. Like Charles Dickens maybe, or Edgar Allan Poe.
I stared out the window, into the darkness, waiting for the golden lights. Instead I saw only the concrete birdbath and the old shed that I still hadn't gone into yet. It'd never intrigued me.
Until now.
I went back inside, suddenly adrenalized. I changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then grabbed a flashlight and hammer from the toolbox under the kitchen sink. Once equipped (I'd hoped a few blows from the hammer would prove sufficient in breaking off the rusty lock on the shed), I stepped outside via the side door in the patient waiting room. The fresh night air felt great, cool and crisp and comfortable on my lungs. Fireflies floated by in a slothful manner, moths fluttering briskly about the houselight in droves. Hordes of beetles clung to the screens like appliqués on a batik-style shirt. Quite a bugfest.
The woods were alive with the sounds of nature. Cicadas, crickets, owls and nightbirds, all tossing their calls into a wind that embraced the sea of leaves in a soothing, static-toned sway. The trees themselves were a monstrous moving shape against the cloudless sky, frontlit from the light on the back of the house. Above, a glowing half-moon illuminated the backyard, the stars pinpoint flames burning through the great dark canopy above. A rather massive contrast to the city, this great symbiosis with nature was something I still hadn't gotten used to yet.
A gust of wind rippled my shirt as I paced across the lawn towards the shed. I still hadn't switched the flashlight on; didn't need to. The moon and houselight provided enough illumination to guide the way. The grass beneath my feet was dry and needed to be cut; the blades ran under my pants and tickled my ankles as though simulating the spiny legs of some ground-bearing insect.
I reached the shed which marked the boundary of the woods. I stopped. Listened. The branches of the trees groaned restlessly in the growing wind. The ancient wood of the shed creaked and settled, making it sound alive. It scared the heck out of me, and I suddenly felt like a madman in search of some diabolical plot to commit. I looked back at the house. It had a spooky charm to it, standing there in the ghostly hue of the moon's light. During the day it feigned innocence, sitting in its colonial decorum with daisy patches and painted shutters that welcomed all approachers in smiling, gleeful colors. Now at night, its true character seemed to emerge: dark, dank, full of secrets bursting at the beams. Put a jack-o-lantern outside and it would be Halloween, just like that.
Scratch...scratch
.
I jerked my sights back to the shed. I heard something. A noise, emerging from within the weather-beaten walls: like sharpened nails picking splinters away from an overly dry spot. Now I switched on the flashlight, aimed its honed beam into the quarter-inch space between the door and wall. The light disappeared beyond the slight gap, making it impossible to see inside.
Scratch...scratch.
There it was again. Although discreet, it gave me quite a startle, as though a muted alarm went off nearby. I stepped back, the flashlight and hammer now shaking in my hands. I wanted to yell out, to see if anyone was
inside
the shed—common sense dictated this to be highly doubtful because the door had been locked from the outside. Unless of course...unless he, she, or it had been forcibly locked inside against their will.
This was possible...
I shuddered at the thought and cursed my anxieties for allowing me to think in such a frail, childlike manner. My jumping thoughts were no more rational than Jessica's sudden fear of Page and his ghost-smelling nose. I told myself to get a grip, be strong, to handle the situation just like any pant-wearing man of the household might: with strength, vigor, and courage.
I switched tools, the flashlight now in my left hand, the hammer in my right. The woods appeared darker, suddenly dead despite the ongoing chorus of insects. The wind picked up again and I shuddered, not from the cool gust but from an instantaneous feeling of aloneness that rode down on me powerfully and aggressively.
I looked at the lock in the flashlight's beam. It dangled on the rusty hinge like a tiny piñata waiting to be pummeled. I raised the hammer not so high and whacked it. It jangled against the clasp, and the subsequent clang echoed loudly despite my weak effort. The woods answered with yet another pervasive draft.
Aiming the flashlight's beam at my handiwork, I could see that the lock was still in place but the clasp appeared looser, one rusty screw gone forever in the surrounding dirt bib beneath my feet. I thought about whacking it again but decided that the hammer's claw would do the job just as efficiently and much more quietly. I hooked the sharp edge of the claw behind the rusted fastener. I gave it a weak tug. It remained steadfast despite the missing nail.
Then...another sound. I held my breath, listening intently over the lashing precipitation of my heart. Again, it had come from within the walls of the shed. But not the faint scratching I heard earlier. This noise was a muted pounding of sorts, something boots might make while kicking up chunks of dry soil.
"Hello," I called, my voice sounding hopeless, barely more than a whisper. Jesus, did I really expect an answer? I inhaled and knocked gently against the door with the hammer. This time I did get an answer. More grinding, shuffling, and then a knock, as though something inside had come in accidental contact with one of the four walls.
My God...there was definitely something inside. Something alive.
"Hello in there?" I said, a bit louder this time but still only croaking faintly. "Can you hear me?"
No response, noise or otherwise. But there was an odor now, a pissy-smelling waft that reminded me of the NYC subway system during the month of August. I took another deep inhale, eyes tearing from the stench, and wedged the hammer's claw behind the clasp. I tugged once, twice. On the third pull the wood splintered and the screws popped free. The fourth pull was made with less effort—as much needed to render the latch and lock from its weak foundation. It fell to the floor with a soft thud.
From inside, more scratching. Another thud. I stepped back a few feet, almost falling backwards. A feeling of giddiness hit me as though the environment had been subtly shifted into an askew position. I did my best to steady myself, holding the flashlight and hammer out at equidistant positions alongside my body. Once I regained my balance, I stared back at the shed.
What the hell is inside? Person? Animal? Isolate?
No
, I told myself. I knew better than to consider something horrific, something
impossible
. Here I would find a bird or squirrel that had somehow wedged its way in through a crack at the base, had starved for days until this moment when it heard its potential salvation fiddling beyond the darkened walls of its prison.
Telling myself—yet again—that there was nothing to be alarmed about, I stepped forward and gripped the rusted door handle. I opened it. First a crack. Then all the way.
I shined the flashlight inside.
At first all I could see was a bulking shape in the gloom, no real details. But as I waved the light around, everything came into view, and even though I'd been partially correct in my assumption, my legs still went soft with fear and anxiety.
The smell hit me hard, as if composed of something solid—like ruthless hands around my neck. A horrible blurting sound arose, and for a moment all my muscles turned to jelly as my weakened sights confirmed my first assumption. Inside the walls of the shed lay no human, no Isolate, no squirrel nor bird. Here was an animal, but one I was in no way set to contend with.
Laying on its side against the far wall of the shed was a full-grown deer, a doe. It made that half-blurt, half honking sound again (rather loud now with the door open), and when the flashlight caught the animal's face, its wet bulging eyes rolled towards me like eggs in boiling water. There was a nasty open wound on its side, a wash of glistening crimson tiding out on the earth beneath its heaving bulk. It attempted to move, four long legs frantically kicking at the ground, one coming in solid contact with the shed wall.
I began to back up, tried to grab hold of some thoughts, to figure out how this animal got in here.
You know how it got in the shed, Michael. Someone put it in there. After stabbing it in the gut. And they promptly locked the door on the way out, thank you very much.
So the question remained: who? And: why?
I felt suddenly cold, as if the near-dead animal had emitted some kind of ghostly chill. For a quick moment I thought back to the doe I saw the day Phillip escorted me through the woods, how it seemed to appear out of nowhere as if Phillip had
just known
that it would be there to add to the serenity of the environment. It had flitted away into the woods just as quickly as it had come, and I wondered with a bit of alarm if this doe in the shed was the very same one I saw that day. I shuddered at the possibility, and at the very moment I denied myself such an improbable circumstance, the injured deer staggered to its feet. I backed away at the sudden confrontation, tottered actually, the stench of pee and shit and filth driving me back just as much as my fear did.