After Midnight

That’s true. I’d often walked it at night when the curtains were wide open and I was all alone in the house. Sometimes, I hadn’t even gotten a case of the jitters. Usually, though, I found myself hurrying along, goosebumps from head to toe, afraid to even glance toward the windows, absolutely certain that someone horrible must be gazing in at me.

Tonight, I was already feeling too damn jumpy.

The popcorn wasn’t worth a trip that might scare me half out of my wits, so I went ahead and watched the next movie without any.

It ended a little after midnight.

Which was late. Normally, eleven o’clock would’ve been about the right time for letting myself out of the house and hurrying to my room above the garage.

As late as it already was, I didn’t feel the least bit sleepy. Maybe because I’d taken all those naps beside the pool.

So why not stay and watch one more movie?

Why not? Because if I watched another, I would have to make my trip to the garage at 1:30 or 2:00.

Way too late.

My swimsuit was still in the master bathroom. I decided to leave it there. Since I had nothing else to put on, I stayed in Charlie’s robe. I liked wearing it, anyway. It was very lightweight, and felt slippery and cool against my skin. Also, it made me feel funny, sometimes, knowing it was his. Funny in a good, familiar sort of way.

My purse was with me on the sofa, so I didn’t need to go searching for it. I didn’t have to wander around the rest of the house to make sure all the doors were locked, either. I’d taken care of that before the sun went down. I’d also made sure that every light was off except for those that were supposed to stay on all night: the one in the foyer and a couple out in front of the house.

Serena and Charlie never lit up the rear of the house—the deck or pool or yard—except when they were out there. (And sometimes not even then.) I never asked them why. If it was me, though, I would’ve kept them off because of the woods.

Who knows what they might attract? There were things in the woods that might see the lights and come over to investigate. Nasty, wild things that belonged in the deep woods, not in your back yard. Not in your house.

2

THE STRANGER

Midnight.

I wished I was already back inside my safe little place above the garage.

Before I could be there, though, I had to get there.

Getting there was the bad thing about staying in Serena and Charlie’s house. It was the price that had to be paid. Not a terrible price, really. I’d always been willing to pay it for the luxury of using their house.

I mean, it was my choice to stay after dark, to stay until midnight. I could’ve returned to my place before sundown, or even kept out of their house entirely and avoided the whole problem.

Or, having stayed late, I could’ve avoided the return trip by remaining in the house.

But here’s the deal.

It only takes me two or three minutes to step outside, hurry over to the garage, climb the flight of stairs to my door, unlock it and get inside. If I’m really scared, I can probably do it in less than a minute.

The trip always frightens me, but it doesn’t last long. If I avoid it by spending all night in the house, however, I end up being tormented for hours and hours, not a few minutes.

It makes sense to me.

I do things my own way, that’s the thing. If enjoying the luxuries of the house means I have to make a scary rush back to my own place in the middle of the night, so be it. I’ll pay the price.

Anyway, it was time to go. Past time.

So I shut off the television, then turned off all the lamps in the den. After that, there was only darkness except for a dim, gray glow of moonlight that seeped in through the curtains. I opened the curtains. The glow brightened a lot. I stepped up close to the glass door and looked out.

With the den dark behind me and the area behind the house spread with moonlight, I felt invisible.

I took my time, gazing out. I wanted to be completely sure it was safe before unlocking the door and stepping into the night.

Impossible, of course.

You can never be sure it’s safe.

The full moon, that night, was very bright. It laid a dazzling silver path across the surface of the swimming pool. The concrete around the pool looked gray like dirty snow. The lawn beyond the concrete was as dark as the water. Like the water, it had a path of moonlight. The path on the grass was as dim as old iron, but led straight to the brilliant path that came over the pool toward me.

At the far end of the lawn, the forest started. The tops of the trees looked as if they’d been misted with silver spraypaint. Below their tops, the trees were completely dark. So dark they looked gone. They cast a black shadow over part of the lawn.

I saw nobody.

But there was so much blackness.

Someone might be lurking at the border of the woods, or even closer than that.

In the pool, for instance.

The water level is a foot or more below the rim, so the far wall casts a shadow along its entire length. A dozen faces—two dozen—might be hidden in that strip of blackness…all of them watching me. The near side of the pool could provide another hiding place, not because of any shadow but because the concrete edge, itself, blocked my view of whatever might be waiting beneath it.

If he preferred to stay dry, an assailant might simply wait for me, nearby but out of sight, with his back pressed to the very wall of the house. I wouldn’t be able to spot him there until I’d opened the door and leaned out. And that might be the end of me.

Or he might position himself around the corner to jump me in the space between the house and the garage.

Do you see what I mean about safety?

I stared out the door for a very long time. Even though I saw nobody, I couldn’t quite force myself to move. I kept thinking about all the places where someone might be.

My breath kept fogging up the glass. I guess that’s because the air conditioner was on in the house. Every now and then, a milky white cloud would ruin my view. I had to sway to one side or another, or crouch, in order to find some clear glass. Sometimes, I wiped away the fog with my hand or forearm or the front of my robe.

The way I’m telling it, you must think I was standing there forever and that I’m a hopeless coward.

It sort of felt like forever, but it probably wasn’t more than fifteen or twenty minutes.

And even though I’m not the bravest person in the world, it’s a fact that I’d made the trip from the house to the garage many times in the past, often at very late hours of the night. Serena and Charlie did a lot of traveling. I’d lived above their garage for three years, and I always came over when they were away.

Sometimes, I hardly gave a glance out the door before sliding it open and walking out. That was rare, but it happened. More often, I spent five or ten minutes. A couple of times, I’d been so spooked that it had taken me more than an hour to work up my courage to leave.

But I’d always gone, sooner or later.

So I wouldn’t call myself a hopeless coward.