Home Improvement Mystery

The video only had forty-seven views, most of which were hers.  Thea watched it again, full screen, headphones this time.

It was an amateur home improvement channel with a husband and wife, Matt and Claire, who had been posting videos for nine months as they renovated their old house.  Only eighteen videos of the usual: touring, cleaning, finding, fixing, tips, mistakes, stray cats.  All of them were live-streamed.  And then the last video, posted a month ago.

MATT (off)    Yes, we're going.

CLAIRE        (waving) Hello!  We're in the pantry today, fixing the floor, which is why I look short.

The camera pans down to show CLAIRE standing between joists.

CLAIRE (cont.)    My feet are in the crawlspace under the pantry where I have been vacuuming and getting ready for us to build supports for the joists.

MATT (off)       Hey, wait, did you hear that?  Was that down there?

CLAIRE            I didn't hear.

CLAIRE leans down a little to listen.  There is a thump.

CLAIRE (cont.)    I heard that!

MATT (off)        That was it!  What is it?

The camera jiggles as MATT sits on the floor, putting his legs into the crawlspace from above.  MATT turns on the flash and the picture takes a dizzying drop as he reaches down, illuminating the small space below.  CLAIRE'S legs are briefly visible before the camera swings to the left.  There is a stone wall with spaces at the top between joists that disappear into the next room.

There is a growling sound, and both MATT and CLAIRE make startled sounds, the camera swings wildly before the feed cuts off.

  

361

Her lungs burned with every breath, her saliva felt thick, and it was only sheer force of will that kept her feet pounding one after the other after the other.  Running had never been a passion for Julia.  It had never been a vague wish, like, "I wish I could be a runner."  Julia disliked running and wondered why people would subject themselves to it.  She could see her goal, which gave her the boost she had heard about but never experienced.  She almost thought she could feel the fabled "runner's high", though that was probably just the dizzy relief of knowing she was almost done.  Almost there.  Almost safe.

335

Hesper's chain wouldn't let her move further than six feet from the basement wall.  She used the full stretch to the left, as close to the sump pump as she could get, as her bathroom.  She used the full stretch to the right for sleeping, her left ankle always pointed to the chain's end bolted to the wall.  The right side was next to the furnace, which kept her slightly warmer than anywhere else.

288

A voice coming from the bottom of a well is not a voice to be ignored.  If it's an actual person trapped, he or she will need help getting out.  Rarely is a person trapped in a well, however.  Voices from wells tend to be more sinister.

260

I have a piece of broken mirror in a wooden box on the back of a bookshelf in my workroom.  I have not taken it out of the box since the day I found it.  I would say I haven't thought about it since that day, but this is not a place for lies; it is a place to find the truth, even if it disturbs me.  Even if I must look into the mirror over my shoulder once again.

246

She died from blunt force trauma to the skull.  In greater detail, it was a rock, held in the hand of a man, who repeatedly bashed her on the face and left side of her skull, as he was right-handed.  She lost consciousness, but not as soon as she would have liked.  The whole event was over for her within two minutes, though it carried on for the man another ten.  He struck her with the rock, a piece of cement carried with him for that purpose, for approximately three minutes, one full minute after she was already dead.  He then grabbed her limp shoulders and shook her, occasionally slapping her on the ground, for another minute.  He stood and kicked her body and even jumped on the torso.  The last few minutes were spent shoving the corpse into a plastic garbage can and stuffing bloody garbage from the scene on top.

219

I was fourteen when my dead grandmother began following me.  I thought it must have been part of "the curse", which I had gotten for the first time that same month.  I knew it wasn't the normal course of life to start menstruating and then have the dead appear; I was fourteen, not stupid.  I knew it was a part of my life, triggered by my first month on the rag.  I had been warned by my mother that it could get weird.  I didn't feel right telling my mom exactly how weird, though I'm sure she suspected.

215

The slate floor was cold and unforgiving to bones and angles.  Hipbones and shoulder bones and the sides of knees and ankles in particular.  It tasted of cool minerals.  Sari had tasted three full rectangles of slate from grout to grout.  The last one tasted of iron, but she had started her tasting and didn't like to leave one only partially done.

203

It was the only road that still went under the canal.  There had been another, two counties over, but that had been filled in years ago.  Unsafe.  This was the last remaining.  It was a single, lumpy lane under a stone arch that dripped in twenty places.  It froze up good in the winter, but even at the height of summer, it was a cool as a tomb in the shade.  Though it flowed, the canal above was eerily silent.  Cars did drive on the rutted road, but not many and not often.  Some of the stones had fallen along the sides, and some old beer cans lay crushed among them.  The sky was blue, but when you got to the middle of the tunnel, you couldn't see it from either end.  The tunnel echoed and could turn any voice into a looping lament.

190

Calm down.  What do you know?  I know the floor is cold.  Probably cement.  It is rough, with some loose stones.  It is musty.  It makes me think of a basement, but I don't know, I don't know where I am.

Breathe.  What else do you know?  My shoulder hurts.  My hip hurts.  My knee hurts.  My toes feel numb, but that's because of the cold.  I hurt because I've been laying on one side on a hard surface.  I should move...  I am stiff, but I don't feel broken.  I can stretch out my legs and not touch a wall or anything.  What else is here?  Why am I here?

Come on, what do you see?  My eyes are swollen from crying and my head hurts.  I feel crusty and it's hard to open my eyes... it's dark.  My hands are tied together!  They're together, and I can't separate them!

Not I can't.  What can?  They're in front of me, so I can lift them to my face.  My hands smell like dirt, but I can move my fingers.  I can move my hands.  I can wipe my eyes.  I can wriggle my wrists--they're not tied tightly.  It's not rope... it's softer, like a t-shirt wrapped around them.  I can pull my hands out and use the cloth to wipe my face.  I can see... It's dark.  Can I see??  Maybe I can't see!

What are you going to do if you keep panicking?  Nothing.  You can see, but you're not trying.  Right... I can see it's lighter over there, further away, higher up.  I am on the floor.  That could be a window.  I'll try.  I will try.

123

Cammaratta giggled like a demented schoolgirl and it was at that moment that Lara knew he was insane. "Okay, then, Cam. I gotta go. Seven in the morning gets earlier every day," she said, chuckling like she agreed what he thought was funny really was.

Cam sighed, his face still grinning on the surface. "No, you don't."

A tingle passed into Lara's belly. "No, I don't what?"

"No you're not leaving." Cammaratta's wooden desk chair squeaked backwards on its metal rollers as he pulled his feet off John's body and straightened.

55

"Marci," the voice whispered. "Marci?"

"Leave me alone."

"I just wanted to say I was sorry."

***

"Marci?" The voice was patient, but insistent. "Marci?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"I don't believe you."

"I know, but I'm still sorry."

***

"Do you forgive me?"

"You don't want to be forgiven. You just want to make me forgive you. You are still trying to control me. You don't, so forget it."

"That's not what I want. I just want you to know I'm sorry."

"And that you won't try to scare me again?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

Marci straightened up. "No. Say it. Say that you won't try to scare me again."

"Now who's being controlling?"

"Don't turn this around on me. You're the one grovelling." Marci felt triumphant. "If you're really sorry, then you'd say you won't try to scare me again."

***

"Well?" Marci waited again, her confident smirk fading. Suddenly she was afraid again.

22

All the presents had been opened and the living room floor was littered with torn paper and limp ribbons. The cake was a smear of blue frosting and stale crumbs on a circle of cardboard. The balloons that hadn't been inhaled for their helium lay on the floor, shriveled. A disemboweled pinata rotted in the backyard. Scavengers had already taken the pizza crusts and dropped Doritos from under the picnic table. The pony had long since trotted away and was spotted by a motorist on the thruway who called the SPCA and brought to pasture in their enclosure with the two old goats.

18

"I see...a man."

"Is he cute?" The three girls watching their friend get a psychic reading giggled.

"Shh! Don't interrupt, Denise," chided Allison, who was actually wondering the same thing.

The medium, Madame Fo, didn't seem interrupted at all. To Jessica, whose reading it was, Madame Fo seemed very far away indeed. Madame Fo continued, "This man is not good for you. You must avoid him."

Denise clicked her tongue, "Get thee to a nunnery, Jess. Or maybe to the softball team. That's rather vague, isn't it, Madame?"

Madame Fo still gazed into her crystal ball, a line creasing between her brows. "This man will hurt you." Jessica could feel the medium's struggle. Was she trying to see more clearly? Trying to find the words? Trying to concentrate over Denise's hostile posture?

"What does he look like?" Jessica breathed.

"He's...going to hurt you. He's difficult to make clear, but the intent is powerful."

Jessica could hear the candles sizzling and their flickering light was making her dizzy. "When?"

"Sssssssoooooooonnnnnn!" Madame Fo's prophecy seemed ripped from her, and the medium kicked out with her legs, knocking the table and making her crystal ball and two candles fall to the floor. The girls screamed, hands over their mouths, eyes wide in the increased darkness. At least Denise had the presence of mind to open the door and let in the light of the tiny waiting room.

1

It was a bus stop, one of the three-sided glass enclosures with a graffiti-carved slat bench, and it smelled like urine. The remaining fluorescent bulb flickered and buzzed, causing more irritation by still working than if it just had gone dark. Leaves and bits of unrecognizable paper trash piled in the corners, dampened and dried into detritus sculptures. To head-height the glass was opaque with scratches and smears of greasy fingers, hair gel, lipstick, spit, marker, newsprint, vomit and various beverages. The baby lay under the bench, quiet and still.