Darkness My Old Friend
It’s only a shadow on the wall, but it makes the hairs on Carrie’s arms rise. She wakes from a nightmare, just in time, as one does when the chase is on and you’re the prey, and she can’t drop off back to sleep. She goes downstairs to get a glass of milk and check out the shadow.
She lives alone in the woods and enjoys the dark. It feels primitive. Makes fear scintillating. Spawns bogeymen. She never locks her doors. Makes no sense, since all an intruder has to do is bust a window on the first floor. No burglar alarms either. If some fool is that desperate, come on in!
She makes her way down the stairs, half asleep, half on instinctive alert, and again spots the shadow, sliding across the fridge like a smudge.
Forget the milk.
She slips silently outside. The night is warm, and she knows her way around as well outside as in. She tiptoes down the hill toward the creek, to the clearing she created as a meditation space. Leaves underfoot are damp, muting sounds that might give her away. A breeze rearranges her sleep-mussed dark hair. She can sit there until dawn if she has to.
A familiar whistle cuts the darkness, then a voice calls out, “Carrie, Carrie, where are you?”
Hells bells. It’s her ditzy sister, the one who changes jobs and husbands at least once a decade; who lauds her nonconformities, but regrets her tattoos. What is she doing here? Carrie slogs toward the house, a bit too briskly, and slips on wet leaves and pine spills. As she lifts herself up, her hands and knees sink in shallow muck, and she rises and wipes her hands on her nightshirt. She looks like the loser in a mud-wrestling contest.
Her sister is in the house, turning on every light she can find, shouting through the rooms, “Carrie.” She could’ve knocked. But not Elaine. Elaine loves ambushes.
Carrie emerges. “I’m here, Sis. Quiet down before you wake the neighbors.”
Elaine looks at her sister and laughs. “You’re quite the sight. What were you doing, crawling around in the mud in the middle of the night?”
“None of your business,” Carrie replies. “More to the point, what are you doing here anyway? Why didn’t you call?”
“I was going to surprise you. But my plans fell apart. Rental broke down. Phone battery died. I was SOL. Had to hitch a ride. Anyway, I got dropped off in the middle of town and walked the rest of the way here. Didn’t realize how far you are from civilization. I am totally exhausted.”
Carrie goes to hug her, but Elaine winces at her sister’s muddy clothes. Resigned to giving up on the rest of her night’s sleep, Carrie puts on a pot of coffee, then hits the shower while it brews. In the end, there’s still no reason to lock her doors.
Patricia Ann Bowen is the author of a medical time travel trilogy, a short story collection about people in challenging circumstances, and a serialized beach read. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies and most recently in Mystery Tribune, Chamber Magazine, Idle Ink, Unlikely Stories, and Commuterlit.com.
She’s taught short story writing, and she leads a critique group of short story writers for the Atlanta Writer’s Club. She divides her time between the burbs in Georgia and at the beach in South Carolina, has four sons, grandkids all over the world, and two cats in the yard. You can connect with her at www.patriciabowen.com.
