Gayle Wilson - The Suicide Club

She inserted the key into the lock on her front door and turned it. As the door swung open, the interior of the house appeared totally dark. She would have sworn she’d left the kitchen light burning, but in her hurry to get back to the school, she must have forgotten.

The porch light illuminated almost half of the foyer. She stepped inside, setting her purse beside her tote bag on the hall table. She reached for the switch, but her hand hesitated halfway there. The familiar scent of home had been replaced by something strange. Chemical. Unpleasant.

She breathed through her nostrils, attempting to identify the smell. Something she should recognize, but, perhaps due to its unexpectedness in this environment, didn’t.

Finally she flicked the switch upward, her eyes narrowing against the resulting influx of light. The hall appeared exactly as she’d left it more than four hours before.

Her gaze swept the adjacent living room, but nothing there seemed different, either. Reassured, she secured the lock and the dead bolt on the front door before she slipped the end of the safety chain into its slot.

When she turned back, she raised her chin, slowly drawing air in through her nose again. The odor seemed less distinct than when she’d opened the door. Either the smell was fading or she was becoming accustomed to it. Still, she hovered in the hall, strangely reluctant to go farther into her own house. That scent, along with the absence of light—

Only with the juxtaposition of the two did she realize what must have happened. She knew from school that when a fluorescent bulb failed, its dying was accompanied by a distinctively unpleasant smell.

Relieved to have arrived at an explanation for both, she crossed the foyer and headed toward the kitchen. Although she didn’t have a replacement bulb on hand, she could at least verify that the old one had gone bad.

When she reached the entrance, she could see moonlight shining through the glass half of the back door. She normally pulled the café curtains across it at night, but that was something else she must have forgotten.

Without bothering to test the fluorescent, which had been her intent in coming here, she walked across the pale tile, her heels echoing with every step, and drew the fabric over the glass. Then, through force of habit, she checked the lock and the dead bolt. Both were secure.

She turned, the burned-out bulb almost forgotten now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The familiarity of the room was reassuring. A little exasperated with her initial unease, she started back across the tile.

Although she’d brought papers home this afternoon, she decided she was too tired to mark them. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and go to sleep. She’d already taken a shower before she’d dressed for the meeting. She wasn’t going to take another. At least not tonight.

She turned off the light in the front foyer and then, in the darkened house, moved down the hallway to the bathroom doorway. She reached inside the small room, flicking the switch up. She resisted the urge to put away the few items of makeup she’d left out on the counter as she’d gotten ready. Wasted effort since she’d use them again in the morning.

She continued down the hall to her room. Without turning on the overhead, she slipped off her heels and carried them to the closet. The carpet seemed to massage her tired feet.

She’d hung the hangers for her suit and the silk shell she was wearing over the top of the door. She took them down, dropped her shoes inside, and then stripped down to her underwear, carefully re-hanging each item as she took it off.

Finally, she took out a nightgown and carried it with her to the bathroom. As she entered the room, she again caught a whiff of something that didn’t belong.

Whatever it was, it was so faint she forgot about it as she walked over to the counter. She leaned forward, peering into the mirror. Although her skin had always been one of her best features, especially for someone with her coloring, it looked sallow. Tiny lines had begun to form at the corners of her eyes, and the delicate area beneath them was dark.

Too many nighttime hours spent thinking about what Jace Nolan had told her. And a few spent thinking about Jace Nolan himself. Which was sad. And a little desperate.

No wonder Shannon and her students were interested in pairing her up with him. The words “last chance” flickered through her mind before she ruthlessly denied them a place.

She straightened, reaching behind her back to unfasten her bra and lay it on the counter. She took off her panty hose, standing on one foot and then the other, and put them into one basin of the double lavatory. She set the stopper before she turned on the water and added a squirt of shampoo.

Only then did she push her panties down over her hips and thighs, allowing them to fall to the floor. She scooped them up, placing them on top of the discarded bra.

After she’d slipped on her nightgown, she used baby oil and tissues to remove her makeup and then brushed her teeth. As she was turning to go back to the bedroom, the small pile of underwear caught her eye.

She grabbed the panties and bra in one hand, carrying them over to the wicker clothes hamper. More decorative than utilitarian, it held less than a week’s worth of laundry.

Intending to lift the lid with her left hand and toss the clothes she was holding in, she bent over the basket. Again that hint of something unpleasant assailed her nostrils.

Although it was definitely stronger over here, the smell was still faint. Not chemical, she thought, as her fingers grasped the edge of the top. This was something earthy. Slightly rank. Like mushrooms. Or decay.

She had already begun to raise the lid of the hamper when she became aware of the sound inside. A sizzle, like bacon frying or like someone rustling papers—

Rattles. By the time her brain had put it together, it was too late to stop the muscle contraction in her arm, which had continued to lift the lid.

The split second of realization had been enough, however, to cause her to jerk her upper body backward, allowing the top to fall as the body of a snake exploded out of the hamper.

Stumbling backwards, she felt rather than saw it strike. Too quick to be seen by the naked eye, the power of its momentum seemed to literally disturb the air between them.

Despite the lid she’d dropped on top of it, the rattler’s ugly, triangular-shaped head had easily cleared the top of the basket. Before she could think of a way to prevent it, the rest of the squat, powerful body trailed over the rim.

She knew enough about snakes to know this one didn’t have to be coiled to try for her again. And that the range of its strike could be as much as half its length. Despite the panic clawing at her chest, she continued to put distance between the rattlesnake and her bare feet and legs.

By now it had flowed down onto the tile. As Lindsey backpedaled, it began to re-coil. Head now erect, the snake’s cold, black eyes seemed to fasten on its prey. At the same time, the tail lifted and began to tremble, its ominous warning echoing off all the hard surfaces of the bathroom.

Unable to tear her eyes away from the deadly, seductive movement, Lindsey located the edge of the bathroom door with a hand that shook. She stepped out into the hall, pulling the door with her so that it slammed shut before the snake could make another attempt to reach its warm-blooded target.

The episode had occupied only seconds. One of those “life flashing before your eyes” moments, when you knew with absolute certainty you were going to die.

Despite the seeming safety of the wooden barrier between her and the snake, Lindsey’s breath sawed in and out through her open mouth. Somehow she had managed to escape. And, as incredible as it seemed, without being bitten.