Broken Promises (8 page)

He stopped and he looked at Mary. “I can’t remember anything after that. I only remember I got home and everyone was gone.”

He glided up to Mary. “Did he take them?” he demanded. “Did Copper take them?”

Mary shook her head and met Henry’s eyes. “No, Becca was concerned that he would come, so she took Clarissa and ran away,” she explained.

“But, why didn’t she wait for me?” he asked.

“Because Copper poisoned you,” she said slowly. “He poisoned your sweet tea. On the way home from Sycamore the tea made you pass out and you crashed your car. Henry you died on the way back to Freeport.”

Henry slowly shook his head. “No. No. I’m not dead,” he argued. “I’m here, I’m right here in front of you. Why are you doing this? I can’t be dead. I need to take care of Becca and Clarissa. They need me. I promised them.”

His voice cracked and he fell to his knees. Dropping his head in his hands, he cried, “I can’t be dead. Who is going to help them?”

Bradley, making sure he had Mary’s hand securely in his own, knelt down next to him. “We will, Henry,” he promised. “We’ll find them and we’ll help them. But we are going to need you to help us.”

Henry looked up and met Bradley’s eyes. “You don’t understand,” he whispered, grief evident in his voice. “Becca doesn’t have much time. But she didn’t know… I made the doctor promise not to tell her. She was so worried about not being there for us, I didn’t want her last months to be focused on the end.”

“How long did the doctor think she had?” Ian asked.

Henry shook his head, his eyes filled with grief. “A year, maybe two,” he replied and as he watched their reaction he asked,” Why?”

“It’s March, Henry,” Mary said. “You’ve been dead for nearly a year.”

His eyes widened and he shook his head. “You have to find my little girl.”

He floated to the middle of the room. “Clarissa,” he called out. “Where are you?”

Then he faded away.

“Do you want me to walk you up to Mrs. Gunderson’s apartment, dear?” Becca asked Clarissa as she closed their apartment door.

Clarissa shook her head. Not only did she not want her mother to have to climb the extra stairs, she certainly didn’t want her mother to see the kind of apartment Mrs. Gunderson lived in. If she did, she would be worried all the time, and her mother did not need another thing to worry about.

“I’m fine, Mommy,” she replied. “I love walking up the stairs by myself.”

Becca bent over and kissed Clarissa’s forehead. “Do you have your key?” she asked.

Clarissa pulled the chain from under her shirt and showed her mother the key.

“You let Mrs. Gunderson use that when she brings you downstairs and tucks you in,” her mother reminded her. “You understand.”

Clarissa nodded obediently, knowing that Mrs. Gunderson generally kicked her out of the apartment at about 7:00, two hours before she was supposed to, because her shows were on television and she didn’t want to be disturbed. Clarissa generally spent the last several hours alone in their apartment, sitting in the darkened room, so no one would know she was there.

“I will, Mommy,” she said. “I promise.”

Becca looked up the stairs, guilt and anguish filling her heart. She didn’t want to leave Clarissa alone with anyone, but she had to go to work. They needed her income.

“Okay, darling, I won’t be late and I’ll try to bring some dessert home this time.”

“Thanks, Mommy, I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

Clarissa stepped up one step and turned and watched her mother slowly struggle down the steps to finally let herself out the front door into the cold afternoon. Sighing, Clarissa turned and walked up the stairs to the fourth floor and Mrs. Gunderson.

The stairwell was dark and it smelled bad. Clarissa tried to avoid touching the railing because it was often sticky and once, when she had been holding on to it, something crawled over her hand. The walls were stained and littered with graffiti, words that Clarissa’s mother had told her were not nice. And very often the stairs were covered with garbage from the apartments above them.

Clarissa kicked a beer bottle out of the way and heard it clatter all the way down the stairs behind her. When she reached the fourth floor, she walked to the fifth apartment down the hall.

Her stomach clenched as she heard the yelling coming from within the apartment. Mrs. Gunderson’s husband was home, because it was Sunday. She sighed, and then, with reluctance, knocked on the door.

“Who the hell is knocking on the damn door?” she heard Mr. Gunderson yell.

“Probably that little brat from downstairs,” Mrs. Gunderson replied, her voice even louder than her husband’s. “If you had a decent job I wouldn’t have to watch some whore’s kid.”

“Yeah, well you could get a real job yourself,” he yelled back, “instead of sitting on your fat ass all day watching TV.”

Another door opened on the floor above them. “You give me that money, hear?” she heard a man call out. “You give me the money or you give me back that blow.”

“I ain’t got no money, man,” a woman argued back. “And I need my stuff. So, you back away from the door or I will cut you.”

“Bitch! Give me my money!” the man screamed.

She knocked on the door again, urgently.

“Answer the damn door,” Mr. Gunderson yelled.

The door flew open in front of Clarissa and Mrs. Gunderson reached out and grabbed her by her shoulder and pulled her into the house. “Didn’t your momma ever teach you any manners,” she yelled, slapping Clarissa across the face. “You don’t pound on people’s doors; you wait for them to answer.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Clarissa answered, reeling from the sting of the slap.

Mrs. Gunderson pulled Clarissa down through the apartment into a small room off the kitchen. It was a little larger than a closet and was filled with stacked boxes. There was a small, child-sized table in one corner with a bowl of broken crayons and a stack of scrap paper on it.

“Now, you go in there and color,” she said. “And don’t make no noise. We don’t want to be interrupted. Shouldn’t have to be watching you on Sunday, no how. Just doing it out of the goodness of my heart.”

Clarissa nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she repeated.

The woman relented a little. “You hungry?” she asked. “I got some peanut butter.”

Clarissa glanced behind her, to the dirty kitchen counter and tried not to shudder as she watched a cockroach crawl across the jar of peanut butter. “No thank you,” she replied. “We just ate before I came.”

“Well, good, ‘cause I ain’t s’posed to feed you no ways,” she said. “And you gotta go home a little early tonight. Me and Mr. Gunderson, we got some plans for tonight.”

Clarissa nodded.

“And you don’t tell your momma I let you go down early,” she said. “We both know you’s a big girl and can take care of yourself. Right?”

Clarissa nodded again.

“And don’t you let your momma forget, I get my pay for next month tomorrow. I can’t watch you ‘cept I get my pay in advance. I ain’t gonna have no one cheat me.”

“I’ll bring it tomorrow,” Clarissa promised.

“Effie, the damn show is on pause, are you going to get in here?” Mr. Gunderson yelled.

“Shut the hell up, Lee, I’m taking care of the kid,” she yelled back.

Clarissa moved into the little room and obediently sat at the table. “I’ll be back in an hour to let you out, case you need to go potty or something,” Mrs. Gunderson replied, before she closed the door and Clarissa could hear the lock click on the door.

She pulled a piece of paper across the table, picked out a blue crayon and began to draw a pair of large wings.

Rosie locked up her house for the night and finally made her way to her bedroom. She flipped on the overhead light and bathed the room in brightness. Then she picked up the remote from the nightstand and turned on a news channel, so there was noise in the room. She hurried over to her bathroom and quickly completed her evening rituals and then made her way to her bed.

Her eyes were continually drawn to the closet door. Was it still closed or had it opened just a bit?

Even when she was in the bathroom, she kept looking into the mirror, watching the door. Expecting it to open on its own. A shudder slid down her spine and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Okay, Rosie, get a grip,” she lectured herself. “You’ve lived in this house for over ten years. You love this house. Nothing is going to hurt you.”

Taking a deep breath, she turned off the light in the bathroom and made her way into her bedroom. The noise from the television was comforting. She even got enough nerve to walk to the closet door and test it; to be sure it was shut.

She released a sigh of relief when the door was firm, and began to walk to her bed when she heard a slight click.
Did something just turn the knob?

She turned quickly and faced the door, her heart pounding. She stared at the door, willing it to open, but praying it would not.

After a few moments, she moved back, away from the door towards her bed. Pausing halfway across the room, she walked over to her chaise lounge. Moving behind it, she pushed it across the room until it was in front of the closet door. She pushed it further, so it was jammed up against the door. “That ought to keep the door closed,” she said, brushing her hands together.

She didn’t turn off the overhead light until she had flipped on the lamp on her nightstand. Then she walked across the room to turn it off. The room was still fairly bright with the pictures from the television program, but the lamp made her feel even more secure.

Climbing into bed, the television and the lamp still on, she slid underneath the blankets. Her night mask stayed on the night stand, unused. She didn’t want to be that vulnerable. Purposely positioning herself away from the closet, she pulled the blankets up as high as she could, cocooning herself inside them.

Lying in bed, listening to the sounds of her house, she tensed at every creak and bump. Finally, after about twenty minutes, she allowed herself to relax. Her eyes began to drift shut and the tension began to slowly slip away. She could feel herself being drawn into sleep and she welcomed it. Just as she was drifting away, she heard the knob on the closet turn.

Immediately awake, her heart beating in her throat, she listened as the chaise lounge was pushed forward on the floor. She couldn’t move. Almost couldn’t breathe. She was paralyzed with fear. She gripped the blankets tightly until her knuckles where white and waited. The television turned off and the light on the nightstand darkened. Then she felt the bed give way and knew that something was beside her on the bed.

She felt nausea roll in her stomach and her heart pounded in her chest. She could feel the darkness of whatever was in the room with her. Her legs were numb; her voice was dry in her throat. She couldn’t even scream. She felt it move closer to her in the bed.

Pressing her eyes together, she gripped the blankets even tighter and did the only thing she could think of. She prayed. “Dear God, Please help me. I’m so frightened. Please make this thing go away.”

She felt the mattress shift, felt the presence lift away from her and finally, after a few moments, heard the closet door close. After what seemed to be an eternity, she could lower the blanket. Her bedroom was back the way it had been before she had gone to bed. The chaise was still against the closet door. The television was still running and the lamp was still on.

Biting her lower lip, she slowly shook her head. No, she hadn’t imagined it. There was something in her room. Something on her bed. Finally, she glanced down to the side of her bed and trembled when she saw the depression in the blankets next to her. Wordlessly, her breath coming out in short gasps, she slid from under the covers. She ran across her room and into her living room. Grabbing her coat, she slipped it on as she grabbed her purse and her keys. There was no way she was going to spend another night in that house.

Stanley sat in the dark, a high powered flashlight in his lap, and waited to see if any nocturnal visitors were going to pay him a call. “Come on, you lily-livered coward,” he whispered, “show yourself.”

The clock in the living room clicked with each passing second, echoing in the stillness of the night. He slowly scanned his house, from his vantage in his favorite recliner. A ray of light from the street lamp outside slipped through the closed curtains and drew a narrow line across the middle of the carpet. Tiny dots of green and red from the instrument panel of the television and dvd player shone from the shelf of the TV stand. The digital clock light over the stovetop glowed a slightly iridescent green. But there were no other sources of light in the house.

He waited and watched. Finally, as the clock whirred on the hour and the chimes echoed eleven o’clock, he saw it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up. A faint glow, the size of an adult, floated through the hall from his office to his bedroom. He felt his knees go weak, but forced himself to stand and silently follow; his flashlight in his hand.

He slipped around the kitchen counter and into the hallway. Sliding against the wall, he slowly made his way towards the open bedroom doorway. His hope that the glow was merely the reflection from passing car lights was immediately crushed when he saw it slowly moving back and forth in his bedroom. He stood in the doorway, his heart in his throat, his blood pounding in his temples and his eyes wide with shock.

The entity moved to his dresser and Stanley watched the top drawer slowly open. Items of clothing from the drawer were lifted up and thrown across the room; pairs of black socks landed on the bed, handkerchiefs were draped over the lampshade, tshirts tossed on the chair and, finally, a pair of boxer shorts flew across the room and landed at Stanley’s feet.

This can’t be real,
he thought.
I must have fallen asleep in the chair
.

He closed his eyes and slapped his cheek.
Wake up, Stanley!

But when he opened his eyes, the boxers were still on the floor at his feet and his personal items were still being thrown across the room. He looked back to the drawer and saw the small framed photo he kept of his first wife levitating in the air. The frame was a fragile heirloom and would shatter if it were thrown haphazardly across his room. “Now hold on there,” he called without thought, “you ain’t throwing that nowhere.”