John Saul - Perfect Nightmare

Lindsay warily eyed the OPEN HOUSE sign the agent had left leaning against the garage, as if it were a cobra coiled and ready to strike at her. The wind had come up, bringing with it a cloud that was even darker than her mood, and now a few raindrops were falling on her bare arms. It was as if spring had vanished back into winter, with late afternoon darkness closing in around her. She rubbed her arms, shivering, but even as she tried to warm herself, she knew the chill she was feeling came more from the solid evidence the forgotten sign provided that people — strangers — had been in the house all afternoon.

And now, knowing that, she didn’t want to go inside.

She wanted to turn away and go somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

She looked up and down the street, but the yards and sidewalks were empty, and nowhere did she see a neighbor with whom she could strike up a conversation, putting off the moment when she would have to go into the house.

Maybe even cadge a dinner invitation, without having to explain. And she wasn’t about to tell anyone that, and sound like a little girl too young to be left at home by herself.

Besides, she’d come home to an empty house dozens of times — maybe hundreds! Except that today was different. Today—

“Stop it!” she whispered to herself, rubbing her arms again, then walking determinedly up to the front door to let herself in with her key.

And felt once more the urge to turn around and walk away, to go somewhere else — anywhere else — until her parents came home.

Again she conquered the urge to flee, turned the key, and let herself into the house.

Silence.

She scanned the living room, and everything looked exactly as it had this morning, almost as if nobody had been there at all. Feeling calmer, she went to the kitchen.

The agent had left a note on the counter. Dozens of people had been through the house — dozens! But that was a good thing, Lindsay reminded herself. It was what they wanted! And maybe one of those dozens of people would buy the house and she’d never have to go through this again.

She took a deep breath and looked at the clock. Five-thirty, on the dot. Her parents would surely be home by ten. Four and a half hours wasn’t a big deal — she’d do a little homework, watch a little TV, and maybe make a plate of nachos…

She turned on the television, more for the background noise than because she wanted to see the news, and made herself go through the rest of the downstairs.

Except for the note from the agent and a few flyers that still lay on the dining room table, the house looked exactly as it always had.

And it would be the same upstairs, she thought.

Everything would be exactly as she’d left it, and no one would have gone through her drawers, and there would be nothing wrong at all.

Except she still didn’t want to go up to her room, and found herself gazing at the stairs with the same feeling of dread with which she’d looked at the house itself only a few minutes ago.

And she felt even colder than when she’d been out standing in the chill and drear of the rainy afternoon.

“Stop it!” she commanded herself again, barely realizing she was speaking out loud to an empty room. “You’re just freaking yourself out.” The sound of her own voice somehow making her feel better, she got a Diet Pepsi from the refrigerator, and then mounted the stairs.

Her room looked exactly as she had left it. She sniffed, and thought she could still smell traces of the strange odor that had hung in her room on Wednesday.

No, she told herself. You’re just imagining it!

She went to her underwear drawer and slowly opened it. The tiny scrap of paper she’d left balanced on the front edge was still there.

Undisturbed.

Her drawer had not been opened.

See? she told herself. Nobody went through my stuff.

She picked up the fragment of paper with a wet fingertip, shook it off into her wastebasket, and felt much better as it dropped away.

The closet door was closed tightly, as she always left it. When she was little, she had always been afraid that the bogeyman was in the closet, and whenever she called out to her parents to tell them how afraid she was of the person in the closet, her father would march right to the door and pull it wide open while she cowered in the big mahogany bed, clutching the covers around her neck.

And of course there had never been anyone — or any thing —in the closet.

Now, as she stared at the door, those childhood terrors came flooding back, but she forced them aside, took a deep breath, and did as her father had always done. She walked right over and opened the closet door wide.

And, as always, there was nothing there.

No bogeyman, or anything else, either. She smiled then, realizing how silly her fears had been.

And still were! That was it — she’d been afraid that somehow the bogeyman — who had never been anything more than a figment of her own childish imagination — had somehow gotten into the house when it was open.

Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! There was nothing to be afraid of, and never had been. She was older now — almost grown up. How could she have been so dumb as to let herself be afraid of the bogeyman ?

Suddenly, things were back to normal, her fears fell away, and she felt so good, she almost wanted to dance. Flipping on the CD player, she took a drink of the soda, then did a couple of pirouettes that weren’t quite in time to the music. But who cared? Everything was fine again.

She perched on the edge of her bed and rested one of her feet on the step stool that still stood next to the mahogany four-poster, even though she hadn’t had to use it to climb into the high bed for years. She untied her shoes, pulled off her socks, and dangled her feet for a moment, then slid off the bed and took the socks to the laundry hamper.

A second later her shorts and T-shirt joined the socks.

Clad only in her sports bra and bikini panties, she stuck one foot in a slipper that lay by the bed, then looked for the other one, fishing around under the bed with her bare foot, feeling for it. How far could she have kicked it last night?

She got down on her knees and was about to reach under the bed for the wayward slipper when her cell phone rang. It startled her, and she banged her knuckles against the hard mahogany of the bed frame as she jerked her hand back. With one slipper on, and sucking at her stinging knuckle, she flopped onto the bed and reached over to pick up the phone from the nightstand.

“Hey,” Dawn said before she’d even spoken. “You okay?”

“I guess so,” Lindsay replied, shaking her hand, then pressing it against the pillow to try and ease the stinging. “Are you at your dad's?”

“Yeah, we just got here. Sheila’s making dinner and Robert isn’t up from his nap yet.” She hesitated, then: “You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” Lindsay insisted. “I just banged my hand, that’s all. At least it’s the same one I twisted my wrist on last week.” She gazed dolefully at her knuckle, which was already turning black and blue. “So what’s your dad doing? How come you’re not having ‘quality time'?”

Dawn groaned. “He’s working, of course. Said he had reports he had to e-mail in before tomorrow morning. He’ll be finished by dinner, and then we’ll eat, watch 60 Minutes, and then I’ll go home. It’s so totally stupid. I wish we both could have just gone to my house.”

“I do, too,” Lindsay confessed. “Ever since Mom and Dad decided to sell it, I hate it here. I—”

“Oops,” Dawn interrupted. “I’ve got another call. Want to hold?”

Lindsay hesitated, then: “I guess not — I need to change and figure out what to do till Mom and Dad get home. I just wish—”