Outside Your Window

The Cabin

I was standing in the hospital parking lot when I found the Air BnB on my iPhone. I picked the first option under the filters "cabin" and "western Pennsylvania"; it was newly renovated and remote, perfect for leaving my world for a bit. The owner of the property confirmed the booking in under a minute. She sent the self-check in instructions (everything would be unlocked) and said if I needed to extend my stay, I was more than welcome to, that I could stay for as long as I needed. Her icon was a black-and-white image of two parents swinging a child between them. It was so nice it could have been a stock image.

When I hit 76 West, I rolled the windows down and tested the speed limit. I could still smell the hospital on my shirt. It was that sour, chemical smell, like a dead body stuffed with pine-scented air fresheners. If I smelled it, I thought of her face. In those final moments, her face was more skeleton than human, more science experiment than my Mom. The smell suspended me there. As the dark mountains inched over the horizon, I took off my t-shirt and tossed it out the window. I watched the fabric flail in the wind before dropping out of view, smell and all.

When I pulled up to the Air BnB, I looked around for a second driveway to the real 87 Fairlawn Road. I checked the app, then the mailbox, then the app again. From the pictures, 87 Fairlawn Road was supposed to be a cabin in the middle of nowhere, nothing but trees and stars and the occasional roaming deer. This wasn't that. 87 Fairlawn Road was a shed in the backyard of 86 Fairlawn Road, an abandoned house. There were no cars in the driveway. No lights on. The lawn was overgrown, except for a thin path that led from the driveway to the front door of 87.

Regardless, I grabbed my duffle and walked inside. When I opened the door, the first thing to hit me was the smell. On Air BnB, the pictures showed a newly renovated kitchen with shiny, silver appliances and a beautiful, butchers block island. The living room was supposed to have a flat screen TV and bean bag chairs, nestled next to a sectional couch and three bookcases, stuffed with books. The bedroom was supposed to be draped in white linen. The bathroom should have orange soaps and soft towels. This was supposed to be my new, fresh life.

Instead, the cabin was dark and wet-smelling. The only light came from a gas lantern in the corner. There was a rug in the middle of the room, a cot in the corner, but nothing else. No bathroom. No kitchen. No new life.

I put my bag down and sat on the edge of the cot. I checked my phone. It was 1AM. I could go through the long process of Air BnB customer service and complaints and getting my money back, but it was late. I could get a few hours of sleep, then do all of that in the morning. Besides, where else could I go? By now, Mom was probably dead. I didn't want to go back to our house. I didn't want to go back to the hospital. So, I laid down on the cot, shirtless and cold. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

But, I couldn't get away from her.

My Mom got sick four months ago. The doctors started by saying there was a chance, but that quickly devolved to "making plans" kind of talk. The cancer started in her lungs, then moved through the rest of her body like crumb-loving roaches. My brother and sister came for a few visits, but they lived across the country. My Dad died when I was a teenager. It was just me and my Mom. She and I lived together in the house I grew up in. After she died, it would just be me.

She stopped talking two days ago. The doctors said she could understand me, but she couldn't respond. She would talk with her eyes. They would blink when I said something, sometimes growing wide in laughter and squinting in concentration. Her hands were purple and cold and frozen in a grabbing motion. I couldn't hold them anymore. If I did, I felt her cancer running through me.

My thoughts were interrupted by a sound.

I figured it was a deer or a stray dog. I sat up and looked out the window to the front yard. Outside the big house, there was something. A silhouette glided across the tall grass, aimless. It was small like an animal, but it walked upright. It moved around in circles, twisting closer and closer to my car.

I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt deflated. It's just a shadow, I told myself, a trick of the eye. But, shadows need to come from somewhere, I thought. Something was causing that human shaped darkness.

Then, I heard it's voice.

Hello?

It was a young girl's voice, shrill and unsure of itself.

Jimmy? Are you there?

I crouched down on the cot so only my eyes were above the windowsill. The shaking started in my fingers, then moved across my body. The girl walked over and placed her hand on my car. She grazed the side mirror in a familiar way, like it was the family dog.

Jimmy?

Maybe the girl was the daughter of the Air BnB host, I thought. It was easy to find people's names now-a-days. Maybe this was some prank. They turn off the lights of the house and send the daughter to spook the guests. But, the reviews didn't mention it. In fact, there weren't any reviews.

I reached for my phone. I needed to contact the host. I couldn't wait until morning. Not only was it false advertising, but now she was giving out my name to her daughter?

I opened the Air BnB app and scrolled through to find the listing, but it wasn't there. My last booking was three years ago, when me and Mom went to the beach for a weekend. I looked at my banking app, but no money had been taken out.

The panic ran like spiders under my skin.

Lost in my phone, I didn't even realize the girl stopped talking. I looked up to see if she had left. When I lifted my head, my body reacted before I knew what was happening. I crashed onto the cement floor.

She was inches from the window, her mouth bent in an almost-smile. She was staring into the window, but didn't see me. She was looking at her own reflection, fascinated by it. She had long, blonde-white hair and eyes closer to grey than any other color. Her face was skinny in a deprived sort of way.

Jimmy? Where'd you go?

I laid on the floor and watched her watch her reflection. She looked familiar. As I stared at her, it started to come to me. It was the framed photo hanging in the living room. It was my Mom and her siblings from when they were kids. They were standing at the foot of their staircase, their smiles forced and inconsistent. The girl in the window looked exactly like the girl at the bottom of the stairs, the one my Mom would point to and say, "Wasn't I the cutest kid?" But, it wasn't exactly the girl. It was her, but through a funhouse mirror, like she had just gone through a long and horrible journey.

Outside, I could hear the empty breeze. There wasn't a streetlight for miles. The closest town was 20 minutes away. If I screamed, it would only tell the girl where I was. She didn't see me yet.

She started tapping on the window, as if to tell me she had arrived. Her face was somewhere between confused and excited, like her world was a riddle she didn't have the answer to yet. I closed my eyes. But, when I did, I saw my Mom. She was laying in the dark hospital room, staring at the ceiling. Her heart rate monitor was dropping to lower tides. When I stormed out, the doctor grabbed my arm and said she only had a few hours left. He asked if I was sure I wanted to leave. But, I didn't respond. I pushed past him and ran for the parking lot. I swiped at my phone to look for my remote paradise. I didn't want to watch her die. I didn't want to see her slip into that other place, that place of strange houses and dark corners and body-shaped shadows.

The girl repeated the phrase as her fingernails scratched at the glass.

Where'd you go?

Where'd you go?

Where'd you go?

Her voice grew louder, like a storm pressing against the windows. I wanted to yell at her to leave, but I didn't want her to see me. I crawled over to the cot and grabbed the pillow. I folded it over my head, but the girl's voice cut through.

I ripped off the pillowcase and twisted the fabric into a rope the width of a finger. I took each end and stuffed them in my ears, their soft ends shattering the quiet, putting the girl's voice further and further from me. I kept digging. I pushed and dug and hummed meaningless melodies, anything to get the girl's voice away from me. I closed my eyes, but Mom was waiting there for me.

I stretched my eyelids wide and awake as I lodged the cloth deeper in my ear. I laid there like that, shirtless with my ears clogged and my eyes open. For all the fear, there was a tinge of relief. For the first time in a long time, I felt true and utter silence.