It’s a bright, sunny day out, though it rained most of last night. The rain made me wakeful as I kept thinking that I could hear voices just beneath my bedroom window. The gurgling of water through the gutters was the cause. Still, I was expectant. Several times the sound of the rain blowing through the shrubbery put me in mind of women in long dresses strolling through the yard. Dresses that would trail across the grass as they walked, rustling slightly. It was a peculiar thought and I guess that’s why I dreamt so strangely afterwards.
I must have fallen asleep close to dawn. In my dream, the sun was rising above the drenched earth. My house had that clean, windswept but slightly drowned look that it probably has this very moment. I was lying in my bed, dreaming, when there was just the slightest of sounds. The soft scrape of a tiny shoe on the walkway leading to my front door. Barely audible, yet instantly recognized.
I felt myself trying desperately to wake up, but I couldn’t seem to open my eyes! Even though I was dreaming, I couldn’t see! Somehow, I managed to sit up in bed and I began to force my eyelids apart with my fingers. Then I could see again.
My room was flooded with the morning sun and I could see that I was alone, but as sometimes happens with dreams, I could see outside my house as well. As if I were floating, disembodied, above my home looking down at the vacant scene. There was no one there, only an empty, concrete pathway leading to my front door, which was standing wide open!
I wanted desperately to rejoin my body, which was hidden beneath the roof now, and warn myself! There was someone in the house with me! Then, as is the nature of dreams, I was there. Sitting up in bed, staring at my bedroom doorway. Waiting for them to step into my vision. There was a loud bang in the hallway, followed by silence. I choked off a scream. Then the whispering began. Just outside of my line of vision. Hushed, conspiratorial tones, as if a course of action was being discussed. Finally, the conversation ended and I could hear small female laughter drifting away.
I awoke sitting up in bed, staring at my bedroom doorway. I could feel a cool, fresh breeze blowing into my room. I slept with all windows and doors closed and locked.
When I went into the hall, I could see small patches of damp leading to my room and returning to the front door, which stood open. I noticed the hall closet was also open and a shambles. An old briefcase lay on the bare floor in front of it. I recognized it. This was what had made the loud bang in my dream. It had been flung from its shelf. It would contain my samples.
I picked it up, carried it into the kitchen, and set it on the table. I didn’t need to look inside. They were still there. I had never bothered to remove them. The police would never connect me with the scene and even if they did, I had thoroughly cleaned the instruments. Even so, I don’t know why I’ve kept them. Easier than getting rid of them, I suppose.
I walked into the living room and closed the front door. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel so much frightened as disappointed. I was weak, after all. They could now come and go in my life as they pleased and I was powerless to stop them. I knew what they were waiting for. My wife and children were gone, my career as good as finished. Only one thing was left and they were waiting for it. Confession. Humiliation. But I think I know something that they don’t want me to.
Confession only occurs if there’s guilt and conscience and they are drawing mine out and nurturing it. It’s become a cancer that I can’t ignore or trust, yet it’s mine! That’s the key! Ultimately, I can remove it. They may have underestimated me, after all.
I have a few shots to steady my nerves and take the parcel from the briefcase. Originally, I was studying to be a doctor, but financial hardships diverted me to business. Even so, I remained on the fringes and still take great pride in the instruments we manufacture. As I unwrap them, I can see they gleam as if new.
Something strikes the windowpane in the kitchen door, startling me, and I drop a surgical knife with a clatter. The door is locked and I’m not foolish enough to open it. Standing off to one side, I tease back the curtain and put my eye to the glass. A cardinal, bright as a splash of blood, lies broken on my rear stoop. My eyes are drawn in the direction it came from. That’s what they’ve been waiting for.
The two of them are standing close together under a barren maple tree, facing the door. The woman’s eyes are riveted on mine. The child’s face remains an accusing shadow. As if on cue, the woman begins moving across the lawn toward me, her face a mask of rage, flecked with spittle. Somehow, she knows what I intend to do. I can see her mouth working grotesquely, grinding without sound. Her stride is impossibly long and she covers the distance with a nightmarish speed. I can’t take my eyes from her and it’s only an involuntary reaction that makes me fall back, releasing the curtain just as she reaches the door. I see her silhouette on the other side of the material. I expect her face to thrust through the glass! But the glass does not break and the door does not burst open. She remains as she is, a frozen outline on the fabric, radiating hatred. l watch, unable to move, and understand how strong they have become. By the end of the day they will not have to wait for me to sleep to enter this house. No barrier will stop them. Now is my only chance to act! Knowing this, I can turn my back on my guardian and begin to work. I reach for a scalpel.
Suicide is never a pretty sight and this one was particularly gruesome. The detective-lieutenant surveyed the carnage and grimaced. How, he asked himself, could a person open himself from sternum to pelvis? Surely there were easier, less agonizing ways to kill oneself? He would have to wait for the medical examiner’s report, but he felt certain that this old boy had done some digging around while he was at it. What in the world for?
As the wrecked body was being carried out and the scene-of-crime officers began their exhaustive cataloguing, the lieutenant held a scrap of paper up to his eyes. He clasped it with a pair of tweezers and reread its contents. It should have pleased him but it didn’t. On this piece of paper was both the explanation for the suicide and quite probably the solution to a ten-year-old double slaying. In other words, a confession. It must have been written by the eviscerated man, as all the doors were dead-bolted from the inside, but his experience told him that it was in a distinctly feminine hand.
Mother’s Clever Idea
by Celia Fremlin
For something in a lighter vein, we turn to Celia Fremlin, and a tale told tongue-in-cheek...
I wonder, thought Joanna resignedly as she helped her mother-in-law out of the train, I wonder what Mother will have forgotten this time?
“Two suitcases, a hatbox, your umbrella — oh, and Polly’s cage, I didn’t know you were going to bring her! — is that all, Mother? Are you sure that’s all?”
Both women peered anxiously in through the compartment window. Doors slammed. The train trembled towards departure.
“Well, I can’t see anything...” began Joanna.
“No, I’m sure that’s all, dear.” But Mrs. Trent’s rosy, childlike face framed in grey curls still looked a little worried.
“I think that’s all— Oh!” She clapped her hand to her mouth like a schoolgirl and stared in horror at the departing train.