Chapter 4
Rachel awoke from a nightmare, her eyes transfixed on something or somebody in front of her. She was still in a dream-like state when the imagination would easily conjure up strange figures in that kind of near darkness.She switched on the bedside lamp and immediately swung her upper body round to face her demon.
“What do you want with me?” she shrieked, jumping out of bed. The house seemed to shake as her feet hit the floor.
Jack, awoken from his slumber by her wailing, ran to her room and found her standing by the window, tightly gripping the drapes. She was unaware that Jack had entered the room and continued to stare into oblivion.
A mumbled voice caught her attention. She listened, shaking her head as if to clear it. The voice was in the far distance, somewhere out there, through the haze, but gradually she was able to focus and eventually returned to reality.
Her son was standing in the doorway, looking confused and worried.
“Huh... oh, Jack! Sorry, Mommy was just having a bad dream, that’s all. Don’t worry about me... really, now just go back to bed; you have to get up early, remember?”
She saw him back to bed, but at the same time she was trembling with fear. Back in her bedroom, she peered slowly around the room, her gaze lingering on the shadowy corners to see if anything lurked there.
“God, where is he?”
She heard noises that seemed to be coming from downstairs… she could hear something that sounded like bottles rattling and also caught the whiff of a stale takeaway. Marc must be back now; he had a habit of bringing food home after long hours at work. It saved him from having to eat the dinner that Rachel had cooked, that was crap in his opinion and always made him feel queasy the following morning.
She flicked the lights on in the hallway, having always hated the darkness. The carpet was damp as she walked to the staircase and, sliding her hand on the stair rail, she slowly descended, one step at a time. That sickly odour was growing stronger, and as she reached the bottom of the staircase she could hear someone violently rummaging through the trash, as if they were searching for something.
“Marc? You there…?”
The rummaging stopped abruptly and there was utter, terrifying silence.
She mustered up every microgram of courage. “We’ve been so worried about you tonight; where have you been all this time?”
The unnerving silence continued. She peered carefully around the corner before going into the kitchen where all the noise had started from. Nothing there; and it wasn’t Marc after all. Okay, so the sound hadn’t been coming from the kitchen, but elsewhere, it seemed.
‘Outside… he must be outside.’
Rachel pushed her feet into a pair of shabby old slippers before going to unlock the front door. The sharp wind stabbed at her skin like a knife, but she walked out into the drive where the trashcans were kept and found everything still intact. Nothing had been touched; not even a lid had been lifted by the wind.
‘So where’s that noise coming from?’
Pulling a face at the howling wind which blew her hair in all directions, she went out onto the street. Deathly silence surrounded her and the dim street lamps threw ghostly shadows onto the sidewalk. She was compelled to go look… she had to try and find him.
She concluded that the noise must have been coming from neighbors, but how did she explain the smells? Was that just her imagination? She stopped. It felt pointless and anyway, she didn’t want to be out too long in this weather; a sudden hailstorm was blown horizontal by the wind, stinging her cheeks. Disappointed and with her head bowed against the elements, she went back home and straight back up to bed. It was a relief to step back into a warm house after being out in such hostile weather conditions.
Next morning, Rachel woke up suddenly, still afraid and with the realization that Marc wasn’t beside her. She didn’t know what to think, but the only option open to her now was to use her car to find him.
She ran downstairs, flicked on the radio on in the kitchen for the weather report and it didn’t sound very promising. She wondered about taking Jack to school; by the sound of things, there wasn’t going to be any school today… and maybe not for the rest of the week if the weather continued to deteriorate. She sighed and sat down and waited for the radio to give her the news.
“… and you’re waking up to KNNL Radio on this blustery morning in Queens. We’re expecting to catch the tail end of Hurricane Annie and conditions out there could be dangerous, so do not attempt to go out. The highways are not safe and you know somethin’ guys… if I were you, I’d stay in bed with a nice mug of hot cocoa! For all kids out there, you just be careful now; schools are closed until further notice so now’s your chance to stay home where it’s safe and watch all those movies you been saving up…”
With a click, Rachel turned the radio off. She had heard enough and her anxiety was intensifying.
“Oh god… okay, I’m going to find Marc by whatever means. Jack!”
Jack’s door opened slowly, and he came to the top of the stairs rubbing his sleepy little eyes.
“Uh... yeah, Mom, what time is it?”
“It’s just gone six. You go back to bed though, sweetie. I’m just going out for a while, okay? I promise I won’t be too long. Just stay in bed and don’t answer the door to anyone but me or your daddy, okay? You got that, Jack?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Jack was uncertain of what was happening; he’d never been up this early before. He plodded back to his room and shut the door. Somehow, the slight bang of the door seemed to send a tremor through the house. A chill ran down Rachel’s spine and she felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead. Was it wrong of her to leave her only child all by himself?
‘He’ll be fine; I won’t be long.’
She glanced back up the stairs, but then quickly turned away, shuffled her feet into her boots and rapidly left through the front door, locking it behind her. She ran to her car, pulling her coat from the cold, snatching wind and wrapping it around her chilled body. The car moved off and she struggled to keep control as the ever increasing gale buffeted the vehicle this way and that. She was scared and flicked the radio on as a distraction, but could pick up nothing apart from weather reports on nearly every station. Her busy eyes darted from one street to the next, trying to keep a look out for anyone, anything. But the streets were deserted apart from a handful of people with nowhere else to go.
As she drove, eyes peeled for Marc, another hailstorm broke. The hailstones were the size of golf balls and she was afraid of the windshield being smashed. She drew the car to a halt, rising panic showing in her eyes.
“No... no!” she cried, desperately hammering the steering wheel with her fists. “Don’t do this to me, not now!” Here she was, in desolate surroundings on the outskirts of the city, lost, in a violent storm. She was so scared she felt faint. Where was she? She had no idea, unable to see the street signs through the hailstones that blanked everything out... and that incessant drumming as they hit the metal and glass of the car.
After a while, the hailstones became less frenzied and the gales moderated, allowing Rachel to return to reality. She realised she had stopped between Lexington and 3rd Avenue in central New York, only a few blocks away from Marc’s workplace.
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