so when i get down - like really down - i write - fiction - things that aren't real - but that are an escape - from my own mind.
Untitleda white-hot bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. thunder rumbled, disrupting the calming rhythm of the falling rain. people were dashing this way and that, trying their best to get out of the rain before the storm took a turn for the worse. the moonless night had an air of danger, and the electricity in the air could make the hairs on the back of a dog stand straight on end.
he sat in his car, gazing up at the dimly lit window. the curtains were closed, and a silhouette was shadowed on the sheer material. he idly drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and hummed along to steve miller’s abracadabra.
she peered out through a crack in the curtains and sighed. another day ended, and another just as grueling scheduled for tomorrow. across the apartment in the kitchen, she heard the tea kettle on the stove began to whistle.
the silhouette moved out of sight. after a long slew of curse words, he started his car and put the engine into gear. “tonight,” he said to the high rise window. “tonight, you will be mine, and there is no escape.” slowly, he pulled away from the curb and down the block, making sure he hadn’t been noticed.
a second silhouette moved into the window, this one a small tabby cat flipping its tail in annoyance at the rain. stretching out on the sill, the feline laid there, bathing itself and jumping at each rumble of thunder and each bolt of lightning.
the cat’s owner moved back to the window. shooing the animal out of the frame, she slowly pulled back the curtains. resting a mug of tea on the sill, she sat back in an easy chair. pulling her legs up underneath her and grabbing her mug, she sat there silently watching the progression of the storm.
sara king, a pretty, 27-year old blonde, sat there musing about her pathetic lack of a social life and pondering the next day’s schedule. as the executive assistant for the vice president of marketing at the largest international manufacturer of computer mice, sara’s days were hectic beyond belief.
she softly sighed, sipped her tea, and looked away from the window. glancing about her small studio apartment, she heaved a mournful sigh of longing. why am i stuck inside when i should be out at the clubs, she thought to herself. and then that familiar ghostly feeling washed over her and she was too scared to even look at the door.
where had her life gone so wrong? five years ago, she’d been happy. at 22, she had just started her graduate studies. she had loved college and, keeping her grade point average about a 4.0, the university had given her a full scholarship with which to complete her master’s degree.
sara’s social life wasn’t lacking then either. she was engaged to a terrific guy that she had been seeing for two years, and her roommate was her best friend. there had been tons of parties, lots of dances, and loads of bonfires. sara was on top of the world and was completely in love with life. nothing seemed like it could bring her down.
then there had been the crash. on the way back from a night of dancing at this exclusive little club her roommate lydia had known of and worked at, her best friend’s date had collided with a station wagon.
the carnage was horrible. the driver’s side floorboard had buckled up under dave’s feet, breaking both his legs. lydia had been thrown forward, slamming through the air bag and into the dashboard, a large piece of windshield piercing her chest. sara suffered a broken neck and leg. her fiancé had been tossed around in the back seat, resulting in various bumps, bruises, cuts, and a broken arm as well.
the station wagon was a heap of tangled rubber and metal. dave had hit it broad side on the passenger side of the vehicle and caved in the passenger side doors. there was blood everywhere and broken glass littered the street.
only the driver of the station wagon had survived. by the time the fire and rescue vehicles had arrived, his wife and three children (they had been on their way home after visiting the wife’s dying grandmother, sara remembered from the civil suit) were declared dead – they had been killed on impact.
the man, a used car salesman named timothy danvers, had pressed charges – alleging everything from speeding to driving under the influence to engaging in lewd and lascivious acts while driving. he was pissed as hell when the cops, finding no evidence of wrongdoing (no one had mentioned that her friend lydia had had her tongue in his ear the moment dave had slammed into the other car), had dismissed mr. danvers’ claims and no charges had been filed.
once he found out they were not being criminally prosecuted, mr. danvers had tried suing them – all of them. he had hoped to find some sort of justice in a jury of his peers.
the civil proceedings were long and drawn out. mr. danvers had paraded a variety of witnesses – everything from psychiatrists to experts on auto accidents – before the jury, hoping to have his point hammered home. his lawyer tried to portray him as the distraught family man who had been destroyed by the tragic deaths of his wife and children, but mr. danvers had appeared hostile and aloof during the entire trial. and, one of mr. danvers’ own witnesses mentioned that, due to the nature of the tire tread on the road, there was evidence mr. danvers was the one who had run the stop sign.
so, again, with no proof of wrongdoing and mr. danvers’ own attitude, the jury had found in favour of sara and her friends.
mr. danvers had been incensed and, on his way out of the court house, had gained the interest of a journalist covering the case by swearing that, come hell or high water, he would have his revenge.
but, that had been five years ago, and sara’s friends had made light of the so-called threat. in fact, dave and steven (sara’s fiancé) had written a skit for one of the drama classes, portraying mr. danvers as nothing but a hot-headed, big talker who couldn’t follow through with anything to save his own life.
sara had acted disgusted at the display, but, deep inside, she had agreed.
shivering, she crossed the short distance from the window to the laptop, switching on the power. she sat down in the uncomfortable wooden chair that sat at her desk and continued to reflect on the past two years as the computer booted up.
three months after the civil suit had been dismissed, sara’s fiancé and soul mate had called off their wedding – had, in fact, left for las vegas with her best friend lydia. he had been seeing lydia off and on for months before the accident behind sara’s back, and they were going to elope. halfway through their trip, they had been killed when a tractor trailer had lost control on the highway and smashed head on into steven’s little mazda.
sara vaguely remembered mourning the loss of steven to lydia, but more than anything, she had mourned the loss of the one stable influence on her hectic life. she had lost her scholarship due to the recovery time needed for her neck to heal. having to move back in with her parents at 24 had been a tough adjustment, and sara had always counted on steven being there for her.
at the funeral, she had stood between dave and beth, lydia’s little sister, without a single tear. she promised to keep in touch with both of them as she walked off to her loaner sedan… a promise she’d intended to keep and never did.
two months after the funeral, she’d gotten the job at lenmore electronics and moved into her current residence. as her duties increased during the day and wondering why she was wasting her degree in a shit job like that during the night (bachelor’s of science in chemical engineering, top of her class when she’d graduated), sara had received an email from beth.
beth had tried to call and finally resorted to email to let sara know that dave had committed suicide after learning he’d contracted aids from the accident – although no one was ever able to explain how it had happened. he had decided a quick death at his own hands was better than the slow, wasting death ahead of him.
sara had attended the funeral to say goodbye to dave and to the last reminder of her college days.
she absent-mindedly opened up her word processor. since returning from the funeral, sara had been staying in more and more. she felt afraid of something… but what?
“to whom it may concern,” she had typed. what was she afraid of, she asked herself as her fingers continued to click over the keys.
was it timothy danvers? was she afraid of him making good on his threat? sara nervously chuckled. her view was that, when he hadn’t done anything after a year, mr. danvers had probably decided to let things alone.
was it guilt? true, they had not told the cops about lydia’s sudden attraction to dave’s ear at the time of the accident. but it had never bothered her before. was it guilt about not mourning the losses of her former friends?
or was it fear – the kind of fear that consumes a single, 27-year old woman who is still living alone with no good prospects on her horizon? sara had never given much thought to her life beforehand and found that, even though she was thinking about it now, she still didn’t feel too worried about things.
so what was it? what was that phantom feeling that had been keeping her up nights?
sara glanced down at her monitor, shocked to see what she had been typing. it had been as if she was on auto pilot, and her unconscious mind had decided what was going to be said. she had been typing a suicide note! did she really feel like ending it all, deep down inside? calmly reading through the note, sara repeatedly made little gasping sounds as she read how she had worded the feelings of loneliness, depression, and… what? what had she been trying to convey when she stopped typing?
the power suddenly cut off. although her cat mewed, protesting the sudden darkness, sara accepted it as another part of the storm, relishing in the way the night sometimes hid the problems daylight harshly exposed.
she cautiously made her way back to the window and fell back into the easy chair. her cat jumped into her lap, curling up into a ball and purring to be rubbed. as she petted the animal, sara watched the rain spattering the glass in random, helter-skelter patterns. she laid her head against the cool glass and closed her eyes, feeling a little sleepy. as she felt herself drifting off to sleep, sara thought she head the squealing of hinges on a door being opened. dismissing this as her mind playing tricks on her, she let herself drift off to a deep sleep.
down below on the street, a black sedan had pulled up across from sara’s building. it parked at the curb, and a man dressed in black got out of the driver’s side. “i told you that you would be mine tonight,” he sneered, “and this black-out gives me the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action.”
he opened the sedan’s trunk and pulled out a long, black bag. he then closed the trunk and started across the street. opening the main door to sara’s building, he slipped inside, unnoticed, and started up the stairs towards her apartment.
.........
