Barbara Michaels - The Dark on the Other Side

Her mind worked with the mechanical precision it developed in moments of emergency. Coat, bag-she had those. Shoes-they were still in the living room. That was bad. Well, she would just have to leave them.

Stripping off her dress, she opened the bathroom door and walked boldly across the bedroom. The door was still closed. She opened it a crack, and called, “Would it be all right if I washed my hair? It feels horrible.”

“Sure.” Michael’s footsteps approached the door. It started to open, but she was ready; she pushed it back, making sure he saw her bare arm and shoulder.

“Hey,” she said, putting a faint amusement into her voice.

“Oh, sorry. There should be some shampoo, someplace…”

“I found it. Just wanted to let you know I wasn’t drowned.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

He sounded embarrassed. She pictured him standing outside the door, his long, thin face alert and compassionate. Linda’s mouth tightened.

“Your friend,” she said, through the crack. “Did you reach him?”

“Friend? Oh, I’m afraid I wasn’t able to put him off. He won’t stay long. Don’t worry, I’ll tell him something.”

I’m sure you will, she thought.

“Okay,” she said, and closed the door.

So that was that. Naïve of her to expect anything else.

Letting the water run, Linda closed the bathroom door and slipped into her dress. The skirt was still damp; it felt clammy and cold against her skin. Gathering up coat and bag, she went to the window of the bedroom.

For several terrifying minutes, she was afraid she couldn’t open it. The latch was a flimsy, old-fashioned thing, but the frame refused to yield to her frantic shoves. Outside, dim through the filthy glass, the angular black shape of a fire escape mocked her efforts. When the window finally gave, it went up with such a rush that she almost fell out.

Sprawled across the sill, she lay still for a moment, with the rain beating down on her head and the cold air in her face. Then she pulled herself back. Folding her coat, she went across the room to the wardrobe and opened its wide double doors.

The bedroom door opened, and Michael’s voice called, with hideous cheerfulness, “Linda? Hey, are you decent? Friend of mine wants to meet you.”

Huddled in the back of the wardrobe, behind a heap of old newspapers and dirty laundry, Linda held her breath. Not that she needed to; when the truth dawned on him, Michael made enough noise to drown out a squad of heavy snorers-bellowing for his friend, splashing around in the bathroom as if he expected to find her submerged in the tub, and then rushing to the open window.

“She’s gone,” he kept repeating. “Damn it, Galen, she’s gone.”

Linda heard the other man’s deep voice for the first time. They had talked in the other room for some minutes, but they had kept their voices so low, they were only murmurs.

“Out through the window? That’s a hell of a route, Michael. I wouldn’t have thought that old rattletrap of a fire escape would hold any weight.”

“It obviously did. The dust on the windowsill is smeared where she crawled out. And-yes, her coat’s gone. Her purse too. But-wait a minute-” Linda heard him run out and return. “Her shoes are still here! She went out in the rain, bare-foot… She’s out there now, somewhere. Oh, God. I muffed it, Galen. If she gets hurt, it’s my fault.”

“Calm yourself. You sound like a bad performer trying out for Hamlet.”

“Sorry,” Michael muttered. “Damn it, Galen, I don’t see how she knew. I was so careful-”

“There’s a telephone extension in here. If she’s as intelligent as you say, she could have managed.”

“You mean it isn’t that hard to outsmart me. And you’re right.”

“Cunning and intelligence are two different things. But before you go flying off in all directions again, let’s stop and figure this out. Are you sure that fire escape is still functional? She may be out there still, halfway down. Or lying below, with something broken.”

Michael rejected the last suggestion with a wordless sound; but Linda scarcely heard it. Her eyes were fixed, in horror, on the doors of the wardrobe. They were old and warped and did not close completely; a narrow line of yellow had announced the switching on of the light when Michael entered the bedroom. Now the crack altered its shape, widening and narrowing in turn. Someone was trying to open the door.

Her attention flickering wildly from the attempt on the door to the conversation, she realized what the older man, the one named Galen, was saying. My God, she thought; he knows I’m here. He’s smarter than Michael, smarter and tougher; he knows I’d be afraid to step out on that fire escape. He must be leaning against the doors, making them move, just to frighten me.

Then the door opened and she saw the source of her terror. Not the doctor. Something worse. The cat, the damned cat. She was afraid of the cat. It looked like a diabolical animal, and it hated people; Michael had said so. It would take one look at her and yowl or spit, and back out, and then they would know where-

Linda saw its eyes shine with that eerie fire, which is, scientifically, due to a perfectly normal phenomenon of light refraction. Then the eyes disappeared. Deliberately the animal sat down, its back to her, and began washing its tail.

“There’s nothing in the alley,” Michael said, with a loud sigh of relief.

“And no signs of her having gone that way, either.”

“A flashlight doesn’t show that much detail from up here. What did you expect, a glove draped daintily over a garbage can? Damn it, Galen, she had to go that way. There’s no place to hide in here. I was in the kitchen the whole time, she couldn’t have gotten past me.”

A small contorted shape in the corner of the wardrobe, Linda could almost feel the other man’s gaze, moving thoughtfully around the room. Oh, yes, he was much smarter than Michael. It never occurred to that innocent idiot that she hadn’t left. But he knew, the doctor-he had had considerable experience with people like her.

Whether he actually bent over to look under the bed, she did not know; a snort of amused disgust from Michael might have been his response to such a gesture. But she knew when the doctor’s searching eyes lit on the wardrobe-the only other place in the room where a person might be concealed.

“There’s Napoleon. Still as unsociable as ever?”

“He hates everybody,” Michael said absently. “Likes it in there, though… Galen, what am I going to do?”

Napoleon finished washing his tail, turned around, and prepared to go to sleep. After the first knowing look, he had not glanced in Linda’s direction.

“Well,” the doctor said finally, “let’s sit down and talk about it. Your original account was somewhat abbreviated.”

“Have you got time?”

“Sixteen minutes. Then I’ll have to drive like hell. I must catch that plane.”

They went out, talking about the medical conference the doctor was going to attend. Linda let her head fall back against one of Michael’s coats. Against the light from the half-open door of the wardrobe she saw the solid, unmoving black lump that was Napoleon. An odd smile curved her mouth. How very appropriate, she thought.

For the moment, at least, she was safe; reprieved by the hallowed familiar of legend, by the animal sacred to the powers of evil. What would happen next she neither knew nor cared; she still had to get out of the apartment, but she would worry about that later. Now she could relax, for a little time, enjoying the omen, and listening intently to the conversation, which was clearly audible through the open door.

“I wonder,” the doctor said, “why she should come to you. Is she in love with you? Or you with her?”