The House Near the River

The first stars were beginning to peer out as Angie drove up the narrow dirt trail that led to the weather
ed old house
. “If I ever believed in haunts,” she said aloud, merely because the sound of her own voice was somehow comforting, “this would be the night.”

She hadn’t planned it this way. As she’d listened to the country music that came in from the nearby radio stations, feeling that it was the thing to set the stage for this particular outing, she’d thought she’d get here long before dark. She had visualized the meeting with this cousin she
had seen only rarely since
she was a little girl.  She and Amanda would stroll through the rooms of the old house, empty now for a long time, but full of memories of the days when they’d been best friends, close to the same age, and a day at Grandma’s house was to be treasured.

She’d pictured this as happening in bright
sunlit afternoon
, but her Volvo had decided to indulge in a flat in the middle of isolated western Oklahoma farm country, the kind of flat where the tire was ruined beyond repair and needed to be replaced immediately. Only she hadn’t been able to loosen
it from
the wheel no matter how hard she tried and she was admittedly not very accustomed to even the simplest auto care. Back at home in
Texas
, all she ever did was call her roadside service and they put th
ings right.

But this was lonely western Oklahoma and service for her phone was spotty and tended to drop off before she could complete a message. Against all her teachings, she’d accepted a pickup ride from a friendly farm woman who didn’t have a cell phone, but took her into the nearest small town where she was able to have assistance sent to her stranded vehicle.  All of this took
a
considerable amount of time, as did replacing the tire once she got to a town big enough to have a tire  store.

With decent cellular service once again available, she’d tried to call Amanda to inform her of the delay, but had to be contented with leaving a message and though she’d been tempted to look for the nearest motel—and they were few and far between—she  hadn’t wanted to stand up her cousin, so she’d kept going.

Now as she pulled up to the edge of the weedy yard, conscious of the shadows of sagging sheds not far from the house, she wished she hadn’t been so thoughtful. No other car was parked out here so she had to suppose Amanda hadn’t gotten her message about the hour she expected to arrive.

She was accustomed to the
risks
of city streets, knew well enough how to look after herself in her usual environment, but visits to Grandma’s house were in her long-ago past. Angie
enjoyed
the presence of others, was comfortable at a crowded mall, but this abandoned farmstead, forty miles from the nearest town of any size, had been her grandmother’s home for many years. Last time she’d been here, she’d been
thirteen
and surrounded by friendly relatives. Now she was  twenty eight and frankly spooked.

“Might as well get out just for a minute,” she spoke aloud again. “Since I’m here
,
At least I can tell Dad I saw his old home.”

She opened the door about an inch and then an
eerie
howling split the night air.

“Wolves,” she whispered the word,
feeling like a lost girl  in a fairy tale until her good sense  took over again.
“
Not here.
Only coyotes
, just like at home.” The difference was that at home she would have been safely inside.

They sounded awful enough that she pulled the door quickly shut and proceeded to restart the motor. Only it wouldn’t start.

She tried again, pressing hard against the gas petal as though sheer force
could bring the engine alive
. It gasped, choked, and then sputtered to silence. She tried again but only got a hopeless kind of whir, whir, whir that quickly died to silence.

This couldn’t be happening. Her wonderful, relatively new car never gave her trouble. It was so dependable and it had carried her
about
day after day with never a problem more serious than the roadside service could quickly take care of.

And now, when she most needed it, this happened. She slapped the dashboard in punishment, but, of course, that did no good at all.

She just hoped cell phone service existed here in this remote spot down by the river. Surely it did. Amanda always laughed at her when in the midst of one of their long phone conversations, she said something about the backward rural area where
her cousin still made her home.

“Things have changed since you were a girl, Angie. We have running water and everything.”

Not that Grandma hadn’t had running water. Of course she had, though she’d often told them of the days of cistern water, outdoor toilets, and oil lamps. She could take those amenities for granted, but good cell phone service? She hadn’t even thought about not having that.

Almost afraid to find out, she reached for her phone and flipped it open. Absolutely nothing happened. Oh no! She’d charged it just before she left home, but she supposed she had
used
it quite a lot during the day
-
long trip, both in touching base with her dad and
in
calling
friends back at home to
occupy
the
boring hours
of the drive
. And then there was the time she spent trying to get help with her tire problem.

She’d have to charge it . . . oops!  She’d just bet having a dead battery in her car wasn’t a good sign when it came to charging the phone’s battery.

After allowing herself five minutes to totally panic, ‘
s
tranded here in the wilderness. If Amanda didn’t get my message, nobody knows where I am and there’s wild animals and who-knows-what e
l
se out here
’ kind of panic
, she forced her usually rational mind back into action.

She was young and healthy and jogged regularly. Tomorrow she would walk and jog until she found help. She remembered Grandma’s stories of walking to town
with her brother
when she was a girl.

And for tonight . . .
she tried not to shiver at that shrill yapping that seemed to come from just behind the
old two-story
house.

Tonight she would sleep safely if not comfortably inside the car. She had bottled water and fruit juice in the cooler and though she didn’t have blankets or bedding, she had plenty of clothing in the suitcase she’d packed for the weekend with her cousin. She would be fine, just fine.

Which would have been all right if she could just go immediately to sleep and wake up to the bright light of morning. But it was early yet. She didn’t wear a watch, relying on the car’s clock and her cell phone for the time, but she knew the sun went down early at this time of year. She guessed it was
only
somewhere around seven.

Angie couldn’t remember when she’d gone to bed at seven. And yet, there was nothing to do. She couldn’t see to read one of the books she’d brought, didn’t have her phone for texting, calling or any of the many other functions
for which she used  it
. She’d pay a pretty penny right now to be able to watch a movie on that tiny screen, though, of course, if the phone was working, she wouldn’t be in need of an emergency movie.

She told herself she was so tired from the long day’s drive that she should take advantage of this opportunity to rest and leaned back in her seat to try to get comfortable. After shifting several times, she tried stretching her
body
out across the front seat. The controls on the door ate into her back.

The back seat would make a better bed. Hurriedly she got out and this time she heard a yowling from the distance and rushed, her heart pounding, to get into the
rear
seat. Vaguely she remembered stories of big cats down on the river, bob cats and
lynxes
,
and tried to tell herself she had nothing to fear.

As she lay in a cramped position on the slick surface of the leather seat, she wished she’d thought to grab her suitcase from the trunk while she was out of the car. It was a chilly February night and getting colder quickly. She thought longingly of the heavy robe and flannel pajamas she’d packed for the slumber party night of snacking and visiting she and Amanda had planned, though her cousin had joked that at their current advanced age, neither of them was capab
le of staying up until four a.m.
the way they did in their early teens.

Angie decided she wasn’t quite cold enough to brave the world outside the car just now, but the creeping chill was
sufficient
to remind her that cars didn’t have the
same
kind of insulation
as
buildings and she was barely warmer than
if she’d been trying to sleep on the ground
outside.

She finally drifted into sleep, her whole body aching from a day’s inactivity and the cramped position in which she lay. At first she slept heavily, but then began to rise into a familiar nightmare.

Mom and Grandma were in the kitchen, canning blackberries she’d helped pick the day before. She was assigned
the
simple task of looking after her three-year-old brother. Ten years old
er
than her
only
sibling, she resented being asked to babysit, something that happened way too often these days.
After all, she hadn’t asked for a baby brother.

Reluctantly she took the book she was currently rereading,
Jane
Eyre
, with her and went to sit in the swing on the cool front porch while David dug in the dirt to make roads for his little cars and trucks. Even in the dream, she saw he was a handsome child with his wide blue eyes and angelic expression. Then he looked up and saw her watching him and scrunched his face into a look that was anything but heavenly.