Long After Dark Read online

  He blew his nose but didn’t respond. Everything she said made perfect sense. He had no reason to doubt any of it.

  “Harry?”

  “I’m here,” he said softly. He felt like a jerk. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel well and I couldn’t get a hold of you and then when I got that message and—”

  “You said you called the doctor,” she interrupted. “How’d that go?”

  Just like Kelly, he thought. Like a shark, constantly on the move. Sometimes that quirk came in handy. He explained about the prescriptions and how Kenny had picked up the medications for him.

  “Are you running a temp?”

  “102.”

  “Yikes. Take some aspirin, Hot Stuff. How long since you’ve slept?”

  “Haven’t been able to sleep since you left, this damn cough makes it impossible.”

  “Not good. Have you tried the cough syrup?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t wait. Take some and go to bed. Sleep’s the best thing right now.”

  “I…yeah, I know it’s just...”

  “Just what?”

  “Some weird things are going on. I—”

  “Hold on a sec.” There was a muffled sound like she was covering the phone, then another like she’d taken her hand away. “Sorry, had to pay the driver. What kind of weird things?”

  Harry wondered if it was even worth going into at that point. He already knew she’d say his mind was playing tricks on him because he was sick and exhausted and he needed to get some sleep pronto. “Nothing, I should just get some sleep.”

  “Sounds like a plan sweetie, but listen, let me hustle. The thing this morning was kind of informal and our meetings this afternoon aren’t, so I have to change real quick, fire off a couple emails, then head right back out. I don’t want to wake you so I won’t call later, but once you’ve gotten some rest give me a buzz, OK? Call my cell rather than the hotel, that way you’ll be sure to get me.”

  He looked at the small mudroom through the panel of tiny windows on the interior back door. It looked as it should, the exterior door closed, secure. “OK.”

  “Get some sleep. I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  “Bye.”

  “Kelly?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry about before, I…”

  “Don’t worry about it, just feel better.”

  Harry told her he loved her again, but she’d already hung up.

  * * *

  Although occasional bursts of wind still rocked the house now and then, the rain had finally stopped. Harry sat on a stool at the island in the kitchen, staring at the bottle of cough syrup. He couldn’t remember exactly how long he’d been sitting there, but his lower back was aching, he was becoming increasingly weaker and he knew he couldn’t stay on the stool much longer. Part of him wanted to take the two tablespoons of cough syrup called for and be done with it. To just go to bed, lie down on the welcoming mattress and feel the cool sheets against his flushed skin, to let his head sink down into the pillows and finally be able to fall away into a deep sleep uninterrupted by incessant coughing was so appealing he wouldn’t be able to ignore it much longer. But another part of him still worried about what might happen if he let sleep take him.

  Since his conversation with Kelly he’d begun to question things again, including his concerns, but try as he might, he couldn’t dismiss everything he’d experienced as simple figments of a sleep-deprived imagination. The fact that he’d so quickly suspected Kelly of infidelity bothered him as well. Maybe he was naïve when it came to his wife and such things, but in all their years of marriage he tended to overlook her shortcomings and sometimes inconsistent behavior because he loved her so desperately and felt that in the end they didn’t amount to much anyway. For his part, he’d never cheated. There had been temptations a few times over the years, but he never pursued them. Kelly was the love of his life, the mother of his child, his wife—they were happy—why look elsewhere? And he believed Kelly felt the same. She didn’t give any indication she wanted a relationship beyond or outside their marriage, and knowing her as he did, he couldn’t picture her running around behind his back anyway, it wasn’t her style at all. If Kelly had a problem she tackled it head-on. That’s how she operated in business and at home, always had been. Besides, they’d always had a strong marriage. Hadn’t they? While many of their friends had divorced or separated over the years they remained together and true to each other. Like any other couple they had their ups and downs, and of course they’d fallen into familiar routines and patterns that maybe weren’t quite as exciting or romantic as things had been years ago, but they were a happily married couple. Surely being together and in love for twenty-one years had to count for something.

  Now he felt like an idiot for suspecting her, and with Aaron Searcy no less, the CEO of the company she’d worked with for years. Harry knew workplace romances happened all the time, he’d seen them blossom in his company several times over the years, and often among unlikely couples who, had they met in any other environment, probably wouldn’t look twice at each other.

  Aaron Searcy had married his wife Gloria (a hairdresser and one-time prom queen), while she was still in her early twenties and he was nearly fifty. They’d never had children. The few times Harry had met them at company functions or holiday parties, Searcy struck him as a laughable sort, while Gloria, an attractive though rundown redhead, came off as a tired woman who drank too much and whose better days, like her husband’s, were well behind her. The only difference between them was Gloria seemed aware of this fact while Searcy remained clueless. Dark-haired with thick eyebrows and the body of an aging weekend athlete, he was well into his sixties, with decidedly turtle-like facial features that had probably served him better in his teens. Despite the fact that he was pushing seventy, he still carried himself like a big-man-on-campus type, but it was forced and embarrassing, and clearly no one else seemed to be on board with the concept.

  Take the damn cough syrup. You’re so exhausted you actually thought Kelly was having an affair with that moron, what more do you need? Sleep. When you wake up you’ll feel better and your mind will be clear.

  He reached for the bottle, but something stopped him. His hand hung there, suspended in midair. But what if…

  What? But what if what?

  The vision of the man in black scurrying over Rose’s roof came back to him. What was he up to? Why was he watching the house, and what if he’s still out there? Harry looked at the ceiling. If the man were on his roof he’d be able to hear him moving around up there…wouldn’t he? And what about the coyote, what about the phone call? I heard my name. He’d obviously made a mistake about Kelly and let his mind run wild with that, and he was even willing to concede that perhaps he’d misinterpreted some other sound when it came to the voice whispering “lies.” But he hadn’t imagined the rest and refused to continue entertaining the notion he had.

  You can’t sleep until you figure this out. Something is happening.

  He looked to the coffee pot on the counter. If I’m going to stay awake I need to be alert as possible. The pot he made that morning was still full. He’d poured himself a mug earlier but never drank it. Sliding off the stool, he turned the coffeemaker back on, set it to Warm, then put the mug in the microwave.

  When it was done he grabbed the mug and headed upstairs. If he was going to ride this out he felt he needed to change his clothes. He hadn’t bathed in a couple days and that concerned him too, but the last thing he needed was a chill on top of those already coursing through his body, so he nixed that idea and followed the hallway to the bedroom. At the very end of the hallway, just beyond their room, Garret’s bedroom door stood closed. Harry was still getting used to his son not living there on a permanent basis, and knew it would be quite a while before he warmed to the idea. He remembered the many nights during Garret’s later high school years when he’d be out with friends or off on a date or at some party. Harry w
ould nervously lie awake or wait up for him to come home, so relieved each time he finally saw car headlights pierce the darkness and pull into the driveway, or whenever he heard the front door open, then close, followed by Garret’s footfalls, signaling his son was home safely. He never thought he’d miss that, but he did. Like so many other segments of his son’s life, he’d never know them again. They were gone. Just gone.

  He stood in the hallway a moment, sipped his coffee and considered the wall to his right. More framed photographs met his gaze, more memories in neat little rows imprisoned beneath glass, wood and metal.

  For someone constantly on the move, Kelly had always been a demon when it came to photography, snapping pictures of everything throughout their lives, always there with a camera, afraid she might miss something. It was a leftover interest from her youth, when she’d toyed with the idea of becoming a professional photographer. But like many dreams, it was never quite realized. She never got there, but then she’d never fully pursued it in any real sense either, opting to work her way up the corporate ladder instead. Her constant need to take endless rolls of film of everything over the years had sometimes annoyed him, but now he was glad she’d done it. In some instances those photographs were all they had, the only evidence that remained to prove their lives had been what they’d all believed them to be.

  His eyes gravitated to an old Halloween photo of Garret when he was five or six and dressed like a bunny. Cutest damn thing he’d ever seen. Now his boy was taller than he was, a strapping young man who found such reminiscences clichéd and awkward. But when Harry looked at the photograph he remembered that little boy in the bunny suit carrying a plastic pumpkin full of candy, how his little hand felt in his as he walked him around the neighborhood that windswept October night and something else

  Garret ran into Kelly’s arms the moment they’d gotten home, excitedly showing her the spoils of his outing. Why hadn’t she taken him that year? Why hadn’t she come with them? In his memory Kelly was still dressed for work. Maybe she’d worked late. Yes, that must’ve been it.

  Her career almost always took center stage but that didn’t mean she was a bad or absent parent. His career had driven him as well, was she supposed to be held to different standards simply because she was a woman? He thought about how weepy and clingy she’d been after Garret was born, a proud and painstakingly attentive mother. And yet, it had only been a few months before she returned to work and Garret was sent to daycare, something they both disliked and had never wanted for their son.

  We needed both incomes. That’s the only reason she went back to work so soon. It was my fault if anyone’s. Had I made more money, been more successful then she could’ve stayed home with Garret longer.

  “But I was always there for you,” he said to the photograph. “Wasn’t I?”

  Was Kelly?

  Of course, she’s a wonderful mother, always has been. Stop.

  He sniffled, cleared his throat against a new dribble of nasal drip, then took another swallow of coffee. Pulling himself away from the photo gallery, he moved into their bedroom and searched his bureau for a change of clothes. He threw off his robe, undressed, then slipped into a fresh pair of sweatpants and a heavy sweatshirt. His reflection in the mirror over Kelly’s dresser caught his attention. He turned and looked. Yeah, that worked wonders. I’m a total man of action now that I’m out of that robe and into my nifty new outfit. I look like I’ve been run over by a stampeding herd of water buffalo. Twice.

  Without warning he began to cough. He shuffled into the adjacent master bathroom, spit up into the toilet, then took a drink of water from the sink. Hopeful he might be able to find some regular cough syrup that might help suppress his cough without making him sleepy, he rummaged through both sides of the medicine cabinet. At the very back, hidden behind an old tin of Band-Aids, he found a sticky brown bottle of Robitussin that looked like it had been purchased before the advent of indoor plumbing. He twisted off the cap, sniffed at the syrup, remembered his nose was too clogged to smell anything, then took a long swig. Certain he now knew what unwashed feet dipped in turpentine tasted like, he gagged and put the bottle aside.

  He returned to the bedroom, retrieved his coffee and stood before one of the two windows facing the street. From this higher position he had an even better view of Rose’s roof. No one there. Her house looked quiet, as did the rest of the cul-de-sac. All the other houses sat dark and empty, making the street look like a mysteriously forsaken colony. The buildings were perfectly good, functional and relatively new, yet deserted and lifeless, victims of a hasty exodus, their frightened inhabitants abandoning the homes under threat of some powerful malevolent presence, victims themselves of a greater unseen evil.

  And now he was alone with whatever had taken the rest.

  Harry was reminded of a book he’d read several years before concerning the legend of the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke, and the late 16th Century settlers who inexplicably vanished there without a trace in a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Like the author of that book, he’d believed there had to be a reasonable, non-supernatural explanation for what had taken place. Now he couldn’t be so sure. What if something unnatural was responsible for what happened to those people? If they’d become prey to an unthinkable horror beyond anything imaginable then or now, had it taken them all at once, or slowly…one by one, until there were only a handful left, and then… finally…just one? Had it been that final survivor who carved the enigmatic word “Croatoan” in a tree as a last-ditch effort to leave those who would eventually find it some clue as to what had happened?

  What if something happened to him while he was here all alone? Would anyone ever know? Would he too have time to leave clues?

  He thought about the people who had once lived on the cul-de-sac, remembered a time when the street was vibrant and alive. It wasn’t so long ago, why did it already seem like a lifetime had passed since those days?

  The wind blew, disturbing the branches of several trees and causing them to sway back and forth in unison. There was nothing unusual about that, of course, yet there seemed something ominous about it just then, as if there might be something more behind it than the wind. Harry worked his way through an enormous yawn, then chased it with more coffee. In the distance, he heard the familiar rumbling sound of an empty plastic garbage can rolling along pavement. He scanned the street but saw nothing out of the ordinary. After listening more closely he surmised it was coming from the side of the house, which meant one of their cans had probably been knocked over and was rolling back and forth along the portion of driveway closest to the house, trapped between the fence gate leading to the backyard and Kelly’s SUV. He craned his neck but could only see his car and the backend of the SUV in the driveway. He’d have to look from the bay window to see the area where the garbage cans were located.

  On his way to investigate he stopped and locked on a photograph atop Kelly’s dressing table. One of the few in the house she hadn’t taken herself, it was from a cruise to the Bahamas they’d gone on three years before. In the picture she and Harry stood near the railing of a cruise ship, both smiling broadly, their arms around each other. He was dressed in shorts and a loose-fitting shirt, a typical everyday guy most wouldn’t look twice at or even notice, someone who could easily blend into any crowd. Kelly was far more captivating, with her short blonde hair, big blue eyes, dazzling smile, pretty features and attractive figure. Of course the baby blue bikini helped too. He smiled. She still had an amazing body, one most women half her age would’ve killed for. Weight had never been a problem for her, she’d always been thin and in shape, and even after Garret was born she was back in the gym within weeks, determined to tighten and get her figure back where she wanted it.

  Without realizing it, he’d reached out and touched the photograph, his fingertip resting against her cheek. All the years of marriage, routine and familiarity had done nothing to weaken his love and attraction for her. To Harry, Kelly was still the sexiest
woman he’d ever seen. She’d aged somewhat, but more or less looked the same as she had in her twenties. He, on the other hand, had put on a few extra pounds and aged more obviously. He felt the same, but she looked the same. He mulled that over in his tired mind awhile.

  They’d had an awful lot of fun over the years, hadn’t they? Sure there were some bad times, but didn’t the good far outweigh them? Hadn’t their lives together been something special, wonderful and blessed? His memories were accurate, weren’t they? Or had things changed, slowly, gradually, and without him fully noticing until recently that the patterns they both had fallen into masked a greater truth? Twenty-one years was a long time. Could anything really maintain a consistent level of joy over such a vast amount of time? Was it natural for something to grow and thrive over the decades or to slowly decay and die? Maybe the answer was both. After all, Life and Death walked hand-in-hand in a relationship symbiotic, infinite and profound in its purity.

  The incessant rumble of the garbage can rolling in the driveway tore him from his thoughts. He left his robe at the foot of the bed, gathered up his old clothes and tossed them in the hamper. As he headed back downstairs, his legs were shaky and riddled with flu-induced aches and pains. He descended the stairs carefully, then crossed back into the den and looked out the bay window. The wind had picked up considerably, but strangely enough, the rumbling sound had ceased.

  Now able to see the small section of fence next to the gate where they kept their three plastic garbage cans, he realized all three were intact, exactly where they were supposed to be and secured with a large bungee cord per usual. From this position he could see the entire driveway. No renegade trash cans.

  Maybe one of Rose’s got loose and that’s what I heard.

  He looked across the street. Nothing.

  Tension rose in him again, and the muscles in his neck and across the tops of his shoulders tightened and quickly turned stiff and sore. He angrily yanked open the front door. Frigid air rushed in. He nearly coughed but somehow managed to suppress it. Maybe the cough syrup from 1902 is actually working, he thought, the awful taste still coating his tongue. He stepped out onto the stoop and looked around cautiously, as if he’d never set foot outside the house before. The wind was stronger, cold and harsh and bending the trees more violently than before, but he couldn’t see trash cans or anything else that could’ve made the loud rumbling sound. Frustrated, he searched the street again, eyes slowly panning up, then down, across then back, covering every yard, every driveway, each stretch of paved street along the cul-de-sac he could make out.