Chapter 2
1695 Words
2
The next thing I knew I was in the back of an ambulance with a white-clad paramedic seated over me. He leaned forward with his arms over his bent legs and a teasing smile on his face.
“Welcome back to the waking world.”
The brief sound of a cop siren made my stomach flip over and I groaned. “Can I go back to the other world yet?”
The paramedic jerked his head toward the open back doors. “Not yet. The officers want to get a statement from you about what happened.”
“If you’re ready,” a voice spoke up as a woman appeared in the doorway.
She wore a plain officer suit with a badge on her long coat. The woman sported long black hair that ran down her back and a darker complexion than mine. Her slim form was well suited to the long coat, but her thick boots and the stiff chin warned everybody that this woman meant business.
I eased myself onto my arms and nodded. “Y-yeah, I think so.”
The paramedic helped me out of the vehicle just in time for me to see the coroner helpers heave the body of the man onto a stretcher. I jerked my face away as they covered him with a white cloth and rolled him past us.
The female officer helped me over to a waiting police car where the back door was opened by another cop. I hesitated at the threshold, but she smiled at me. “I’m going in with you.”
I eased myself into the car and scooted over to make room for her. She dropped inside and left the door open as she pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil. The rain pattered softly on the roof as she looked up at me. “My name’s Lieutenant Alejo. Can you tell me what happened?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and recounted my story as best as my frazzled mind could recall. When I had finished the lieutenant leaned back and lifted an eyebrow at me. “Then you didn’t know the deceased?”
I shook my head. “N-no.”
“Ever see him before tonight?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“And you said he showed signs of a definite mental breakdown?”
I nodded. “Yeah. At least, he didn’t seem right. He mumbled a lot, and then he attacked me without reason.”
She scribbled on her pad for a few moments before she furrowed her brow. The lieutenant cast a quizzical look at me. “Did he happen to mention anything about a rabbit?”
My eyes widened. I’d left out that part. “Yeah, he did! You’d you know?”
Alejo folded her arms over her chest and tapped the eraser against her chin. “Rabbits… what could it mean?” I blinked at her, and she noticed my gaze and shook herself out of her reverie. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wander off like that. Can you remember anything else you might have missed?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She leaned toward me and examined my face. “You said you hit him to free yourself when he grabbed you? What did you hit him with?”
I pointed at my forehead. “This.”
Her eyes flickered up before they returned to me. There was a hint of disbelief in her expression that I didn’t like. “The medical examiner said he was hit by something very hard like a stone prior to his death, but not too long before.”
I sheepishly smiled at her and shrugged. “I-I guess I have a hard head.”
The lieutenant stared hard at me for a moment longer before she drew a card from her pocket and handed it to me. “If you do, feel free to give me a call.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Then I can go?”
Alejo nodded. “Yes, but please don’t leave town.” She looked over her shoulder and through the door to where my carton was being examined. A smile played across her lips. “Not even to get milk.”
I gave her a salute and a longing look at the exit. “You can count on me. I’ll definitely stay in the city limits.”
Spoilers: I didn’t stay in the city limits.
It’s not that I wanted to break the law, it’s just that the address led me to a life of crime. That address was the one on the paper Eric had slipped to me. I peered through the wet windshield as my wipers tried their best against the onslaught of rain.
“Noah, eat your heart out…” I mumbled as my car drove through a puddle that had aspirations to becoming a small lake.
The clock on the dashboard read nine o’clock, a half hour after the nightmare I had experienced in that alley. A change of clothes and a quick trip to the parking garage where my long-neglected car awaited me, and here I was disobeying a direct order from a person of the law. I wrinkled my nose as I my chin brushed over the top of the steering wheel. A fine layer of dust tickled my skin.
“Note to self, clean this thing more than once a month…” I muttered as I wound my way along the country road.
The address, at least according to some online maps, had led me along a narrow highway west of town and out to the seaside cliffs. The view would have been picturesque, but the rain obscured most everything, even the road at times. City blocks had given way to houses, and some five miles back those had disappeared and been replaced by a whole forest of trees. Their limbs waved in the wind and seemed to beckon me into the shadows.
“Oh hell no...” I muttered as I kept my eyes on the road. “I’ve seen that horror movie.”
My directions told me to turn off the paved highway and onto a dirt road that wound its way into the thick trees. I inched my car forward, feeling every bump and groove as my imagination tried not to conjure up images of hook-handed fiends and vampires out for a stroll and a snack.
The headlights of my car soon illuminated a pair of wrought-iron gates that seemed to grow out of the darkness. They stood some twelve feet tall and loomed over me. A wrought-iron fence blocked the rest of the route, as did the mess of brush that surrounded the metal-lined perimeters.
I leaned out my window to get a view ahead and got a couple of eyefuls of an impressive and imposing manor house. The gables were sharp, the tall windows foreboding, and the roundabout driveway seemed to offer a final escape before a horrible demise overtook any visitor. Gnarled trees were scattered about the spacious lawn, unkempt and with more than a hint of long abandonment.
“Now all I need is thunder…” I murmured before I stepped out with umbrella and flashlight in hand.
I walked up to the gate and couldn’t find any signs of a speaker box. A lock hung from a thick metal chain and was positioned on the other side of the gate. Even if I was an expert lockpick I couldn’t have reached it.
Something limped out of the darkness, and I had to fight the urge not to scream and run. The creature turned out to be a man of some advanced age with a hard limp on his left leg. He came up to the gates with his ragged gray hair clinging to his bare head, and a wet coat thrown over his shoulders.
The man eyed me with a sharp look but said nothing as he clasped the lock in one hand and drew out a strange key. The teeth were slightly twisted, and the flat handle was worn to a smooth shine with age and use. He opened the lock and there was a distinct clang that sounded louder than it should have been.
The man unwrapped the chain and opened the gates. They squealed with the appropriate amount of terrifying noise befitting a haunted house. He stepped back and caught my eye before he jerked his head toward the house.
I scuttled back into my car and slowly drove past the old gentleman. He never blinked, and in a moment the gates clanged shut behind me. I looked in my rearview mirror and watched him lock the chain about the gate before he slipped back into the bushes that surrounded the fence.
I eased the car along the circular driveway and rolled the vehicle to a stop in front of the pair of doors. A large, short stoop sat under the protection of a peaked roof. I climbed out and scurried across the short stone path to the porch. The rain pattered noisily against the sheet metal as I searched for a doorbell.
I jumped when the door creaked open and revealed the elegant, and very crowded, interior. The house was filled with a plethora of stuff. There was everything from tapestries and stuffed animal heads to paintings and even a little Russian nesting doll. China cabinets, buffets, desks, chairs, and end tables lined the walls and were crammed with books, yellowed parchments, ink wells, playing cards, and other assorted trinkets. The floor was covered by a mess of oriental rugs that overlapped one another, each showing different signs of age and upkeep.
A curved staircase led to the other floors, and on either side of me were large entrances to the wings of the house. A hall ahead of me ran to the back where I glimpsed a pair of French doors that led out into the wilderness that was the backyard.
I stepped inside and gaped in awe at the only slightly organized mess.
“Good evening.”
- Writer
