I shut off the truck. Parked at the end of Mr. Engel’s driveway, I’m a good distance away, but not so far that I don’t see one of the officers tense up as he regards me. I slow down and he seems to relax a little.
The one on the radio sounds like a woman. I wonder for a moment if she could be the angel who answered my call the other day. I shake away the thought—they wouldn’t make officers answer the phones.
“Hi,” I call, raising a hand.
The male officer raises his chin towards me. I guess it’s a greeting?
“I’m the one who called about the freezer?”
The woman starts towards me. I’ve seen her before, but I can’t think where.
“Did you find it?” I ask.
She takes one more step and I figure it out—she was one of the first people to arrive when Mr. Engel collapsed. She had assessed his condition before the ambulance arrived. In a police uniform, she looks totally different.
“Can you describe what you saw?” she asks.
Unembellished by my imagination, it doesn’t take me long to convey the details.
“But I can just show you,” I say.
She cuts a glance over to the other officer.
He says, “Why don’t you do that.”
(They don't share their opinion with me.)
They don’t share their opinion with me.
This is the part of a horror movie that always bugs me. There’s that part where the protagonist is the only one who understands what’s going on and they can’t convince anyone else of the danger.
I’m Ellen Ripley, telling the rest of the crew that it’s unsafe to let Kane back on board with a face hugger attached to him. I’m Laurie Strode, trying to convince her teenage friends that a really tall gentleman has been following her around all day on October thirty-first. I’m Wendy Torrance, trying to convince her husband that they need to leave the Overlook hotel before the insanity there kills them all.
“Shit,” I whisper.
“Sir?” the female officer asks.
I try to smile. “I just realized that in the horror movies, it’s always the woman who survives.”
Maybe the female officer is the protagonist. She just stares at me.
We’re standing above the freezer. It’s completely empty. White mist is spilling over the lip. I wave my hand at the vapor.
“Was the door at the top of the stairs latched?” I ask.
“No,” she says.
“It was when I left. Maybe the person in here wasn’t dead. Maybe I frightened them and they got up and left.”
I’m thinking about the thumping on the stairs, but I don’t mention it.
“I don’t think that door stays latched,” she says. “It didn’t the other day.”
We’ve had this conversation before. Everything was so hectic with Mr. Engel that I forgot about it. She and I already discussed how the cellar door wouldn’t stay latched.
She’s staring at me—studying me.
It’s amazing how easily a calm person can sweep away my fear. I take a step back from the freezer. To go through the whole story again would be too embarrassing. With no evidence, I’m very aware of how crazy I must seem.
“Look, I’m not going to apologize for calling,” I say. “I know that it’s impossible for you guys to believe me because there’s nothing here that matches what I saw, but I’m certain of what I’m telling you. But I understand. I understand.”
I’m backing towards the stairs.
“Can you guys shut off the power before you go? I told Amber that I would and I was about to when I stopped to check the freezer. I’ll be at my house if…”
“Wait,” the male officer says. He takes out his flashlight and clicks the button. His beam cuts through the mist and into the interior of the freezer.
The two officers lean closer to the freezer.
“Right there,” he says.
“Sir?” the female officer says, waving me over.
I’m helpless to disobey her command.
When I get close enough, she reaches out and takes my hand.
Before I can ask what she’s doing, she examines my hand front and back and then turns back to the freezer. I see what they’re looking at.
“Much smaller,” she says.
In the ice buildup on the side of the freezer, we’re looking at a handprint. The fingers that left the print are much smaller and more delicate than mine. The female officer leans in even closer. I hear her take a deep breath and hold it before her head breaches the confines of the freezer.
When she comes back up, she says a single word.
“Hair.”
They nod to each other.
She turns to me.
“You can go home. Please don’t mention this to anyone else. We’ll notify you when we’ve reached a conclusion.”
She escorts me out of the cellar.
(It's lonely at home.)
It’s lonely at home.
At least I have visual contact with the efforts over at Mr. Engel’s house. I see more vehicles pull up. Cars are shuffled. It’s hard to tell through the telescope, but I think that the female officer leaves. I’m trying to remember if they said they would turn off the power. It doesn’t really matter. I’m not ever going back into Mr. Engel’s house. If Amber calls again, I’ll just hang up.
Maybe she will sell the place and I’ll become friends with the new people who live there.
After hours of people moving in and out of the house, I spot the police rolling a big object around the side of the house and lifting it into a van. I believe that they’ve impounded the freezer.
It would probably best to not be friends with the new people, if any do move into Mr. Engel’s house. When I lived in apartments, I always found that it was difficult to be friends with my nearest neighbors. They always know when you’re coming and going, so there’s an accidental intimacy that doesn’t allow any wiggle room. You can’t lie and say that you’re going to be gone all day if they ask you for a favor. You can’t have company over without them wondering why they weren’t invited.
Mr. Engel’s house is a
