Chills, page 5
“You back here, Jared?”
Still no answer.
Bessie stood poised and ready for something to happen.
After no more than thirty seconds—thirty seconds that felt more like five minutes—when no other sounds came and she didn’t see even a hint of motion, she called out louder.
“If anyone’s back here, trying to freak me out or something, it’s not working,”
Still, all she heard were the strains of music from the front of the store and the whistling sounds the wind and snow made as they swirled around the building.
This is ridiculous, Bessie decided, telling herself her nerves were on edge because this was her final inventory and because she had drunk too much coffee and she was actually going to give in to her craving for a cigarette. She walked the rest of the way to the exit and paused. Then she slipped the end of the cigarette into her mouth, clamped it between her teeth, and flipped open the matchbook. Her hands were trembling with anticipation as she tore off a match and struck it.
The sudden blast of the orange flame stung her eyes when she touched the flame to the tip of the cigarette and simultaneously inhaled as she pressed down on the exit door latch. The first rush of nicotine hit her as she pushed the door open and an ice-edged wind blew into her face.
The wind took her breath away, and a high-pitched whistling sound set her teeth on edge as a shiver ran up her back. Her teeth started chattering as she looked out across the parking lot toward the highway. The parking lot was gone and had been replaced by a vast wasteland of drifting and blowing snow. The rows of streetlights in the parking lot faded away until they were lost in the dense storm. They emitted a feeble blue glow in the night.
“Christ on a crutch,” Bessie muttered as she watched the raging blizzard, forgetting for a moment the cigarette burning in her hand. Even in the sheltered alcove of the delivery door at the end of a short alleyway, there were already six or more inches of snow. The majestic, almost terrifying power of the storm held her, fascinated.
After another moment, she remembered why she was here and raised the cigarette to her lips. She slowly drew a lungful of smoke deep into her lungs, watching the cigarette tip glow a wicked orange in the night. She imagined how the glow might make her face look like the face of a demon as she smoked.
She held the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds, waiting for the rush to go to her head. Then, when she began to feel dizzy as the nicotine spread through her bloodstream, soothing her jangled nerves, she exhaled.
This is stupid, she thought, scowling at the cigarette in her hand, but it looked so natural there between her fingers, and her disgust didn’t stop her from taking a third puff and inhaling it deeply into her lungs and holding it there as the dizzy feeling intensified.
“Damn,” she whispered.
For a moment, she forgot all about the hassle of inventory and selling the store, in addition to planning for their trip, as she stared out at the storm. The snow was coming down hard now, blotting out any visibility, but she jumped when she saw—or thought she saw—something…a shape darker than the darkness in the middle of the parking lot.
As she watched, her skin tingling, she finally made out two…no, three shapes that looked like haystacks covered with snow.
Bessie’s first thought was that they had to be cars, but they were too small to be cars even allowing for distance and the distortion of the blowing snow.
So what are they? she asked herself.
At first, they appeared motionless…three humped black shapes that had been cut out of the night.
Functioning on automatic now, Bessie raised the cigarette to her mouth and took another puff, barely aware of the chemicals pouring into her bloodstream. Already, she was used to the heady rush.
But all the while, her eyes were fixed on the dark shapes, and the longer she stared at them, the more convinced she became that they were subtly shifting toward her and the open door. With no lights on behind her, she was sure if this was someone out in the storm, they certainly couldn’t see her. The only light was the faint spark of her glowing cigarette tip. She took another puff and tried to enjoy the sensation, but that didn’t stop the feeling of sudden danger that swept over her, colder than the knife-edge wind blowing into her face. This sense of menace grew steadily as she stared at…whatever it was out there. She couldn’t turn away. Her gaze was transfixed as she strained to determine what those shapes were and if they really were moving toward her.
Finally, the sense of imminent danger grew too strong, and she took one last puff of smoke and then flipped the butt out into the storm. She watched it pinwheel end over end before winking out when it fell into the snow. She blew out the last lungful of smoke, and then, shivering, pulled back inside the store and slammed the door shut. Her teeth were chattering as she leaned against the door, but before she moved away from the door, something from outside banged into it hard enough to make her bounce. She jumped and let out a tiny squeal. Her head was spinning from the blast of nicotine, and she told herself the thump had been nothing more than a clump of snow, maybe falling from the roof and landing just outside the door.
She told herself to calm down, but she couldn’t help but let out another startled yelp when the overhead lights in the backroom suddenly came on. Her eyes were accustomed to the darkness, and the bright light stung them.
“Hey, Mrs. B.?” someone called out.
It took her a moment to recognize Jared’s voice, and a second later, he appeared like a vision at the far end of the storeroom. He was smiling, but a sudden look of concern crinkled the corners of his eyes when he saw her.
“What you doing?” he asked as he started down the aisle toward her.
“Nothing. Just—ah, just looking out at the storm. It’s pretty amazing.”
“Comin’ down hard, huh?”
“Wicked,” Bessie said, forcing a smile. She wondered if he could smell the cigarette smoke on her and knew what she’d been doing.
“Everything all right here?” Jared asked.
“Yeah…sure… Everything’s great,” she said, hoping he didn’t see how unnerved she really was.
But she had worked with Jared enough years, and they were good enough friends for them both to know that she was trying to bullshit him. He leaned close to her and sniffed.
“Oh, man,” he said, pulling back and frowning. “Don’t tell me you’re smoking again.”
“Just one,” Bessie said defensively.
“One… Yeah, sure, but—”
“No ‘buts.’”
“Pun intended?” Jared said, smiling, but she didn’t find his snappy comeback the least bit amusing.
“Look, I’m an adult. If I want to smoke, I’ll smoke, and that’s that.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. B.,” Jared said. “I got no problem with that.”
He stepped away from her, looking as if he was afraid she was going to lash out at him.
“You got a question or what?” she asked, painfully aware that her tone of voice was too edgy, given the circumstances.
Jared shifted from one foot to the other and, nodding, said, “Uhh, yeah. I just wanted to check with you on…even that stuff we marked down last week, we record it down as being at full price, right?”
“Of course we do,” Bessie said, not liking the sharpness of her voice. She didn’t like getting caught sneaking a smoke, and she couldn’t stop wondering what those dark shapes were that she had seen outside.
Is someone really out there in the storm? she wondered.
Maybe someone leaving the mall had gotten lost…or disoriented…or maybe their car had broken down, and they had started walking toward her because they were looking for shelter from the storm and a place where they could call for a tow truck or a taxi.
She and Jared faced each other in silence for a few seconds, and then he gave her a half-smile, nodded, turned, and walked away. When he was at the door, he paused once again and, turning to her, said, “You want the lights back here on or off?”
With a slight tremor in her voice, Bessie replied, “Leave them on…please. Thanks.”
“No sweat.”
~ 11 ~
It took a while, but eventually Meg found a rhythm to doing the CD count, and time passed…if not quickly, then certainly pleasantly enough. The “Battle of the Bands,” as Meg began to think of it, continued. Even before a CD finished, someone—usually Jared, but often Phil—would go up to the register to put in a different disc. Inevitably, this would be followed by another argument about whose turn it was to pick the next album. Jared argued mostly for classic rock, like Jethro Tull or Genesis while Phil wanted Aerosmith or Van Halen, and Tyson kept agitating for jazz, the more obscure the better. Ashley kept insisting she wanted to play some more Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift’s new CD, but everyone—including Meg—shouted down those suggestions. No one seemed to hear Meg when she suggested that they all put a disc into the machine and then put it on random play, and she didn’t feel comfortable enough to try to force the suggestion. Bessie was still in the backroom, so she wasn’t around to arbitrate, and the squabbling continued unabated.
Someone—Meg wasn’t even sure who—put on a Death Cab for Cutie disk, and she worked contentedly. Her primary concern was getting the job done accurately so they could get home, finish packing, and be ready to go to the airport on time for the flight to St. Kitts. If she didn’t like the music someone chose, she could always get her iPod from her purse. She wondered why the other workers hadn’t thought of that solution.
But as she worked, she kept getting the weirdest sensations. At first, they were so elusive she couldn’t focus on them, but after a while, she realized that she still felt as though someone was watching her.
Sometimes she would look up and catch Jared staring at her with a curious expression on his face—a mixture of, maybe, bemusement, curiosity, and…perhaps longing.
What the hell? she thought. Is he really interested in me?
And as soon as she asked herself that question, she decided that, beneath his scruffy exterior, he didn’t look so bad, either. He actually had pretty eyes, she thought.
But the discomfort she was feeling was more than Jared checking her out when he thought she wasn’t looking. Even when he was counting discs in a bin next to her, she couldn’t escape the feeling that someone was standing directly behind her, watching every move she made. As the night progressed, the feeling grew stronger until the back of her neck felt cold and slimy…as if someone was blowing a cooling breath across her skin. She cringed inside and kept glancing over her shoulder as if trying to catch someone else looking at her before quickly ducking out of sight.
Whenever she looked behind her, though, all she saw was the storefront window with its view of the parking lot outside. The storm was creating a complete whiteout. The solid curtain of snow kept shifting as the wild winds blew it in every direction. Every now and then, Meg would imagine she saw something outside…a dark blotch inside the hazy gray blur of the storm…sometimes two or three figures appeared, but whenever she looked straight at them, they would disappear, whisked away by the wind.
Realizing that she wasn’t focusing on her work, she looked down at the row of discs and started counting again and marking her inventory sheet, but as she was flipping through the CDs, one CD in particular caught her attention.
She paused, feeling a strong cold rush between her shoulders.
“What the heck…” she said, but not loud enough for Jared or anyone else to hear.
Her fingers felt as thin and stiff as a bird’s claw as she gripped the plastic case as she pulled it out of the row and lifted it.
The cover was an odd translucent black that looked like dense smoke seen through a window, but as she stared at it, she noticed several indistinct shapes that melted and blended into each other as she turned the case from side to side. She was transfixed by the illusion of three dimensions on the flat case as the figures shifted in and out of focus.
“That’s really weird,” she whispered, a little louder, but still not loud enough for anyone to hear her above the music coming over the speakers.
She kept moving the CD case back and forth, watching in disbelief as the shapes on it resolved…then disappeared…then came back, looking more clearly defined than before. As she played with the illusion, a loud rushing sound filled her ears, drowning out the music. Her sight narrowed down until it was like gazing down a long, dark hallway…or a tunnel…with one…two…no, three figures that looked like dark silhouettes cut from black construction paper.
Only these silhouettes were gradually taking on dimension, too, and after a timeless moment staring at them, Meg realized with a start that they weren’t on the CD case at all.
The bright, polished packaging was reflecting something behind her.
A jolt hit her hard enough to make her gasp and almost drop the CD.
The creeping sensation rippling up her back and neck got intolerably strong, and once again she was filled with the terrifying certainty that someone was outside the store window…in the storm…watching her. The whooshing sound in her ears took on a rhythmic pattern that, at first, sounded like a rushing stream or a cold wind, whistling under the eaves of the house at night.
Frozen by her rising terror, she didn’t dare move to look and see if anyone was actually standing behind her. Her gaze was fastened on the CD case. Her eyes started watering as they widened, trying to take in what she was seeing but knowing that it—that they couldn’t really be there.
As she stared, the sounds in her head grew…not louder, but more distinct…hissing and scratching, until at some point…she didn’t remember when…she realized that several voices were talking…
To me?
Meg tried to swallow, but her throat was constricted as if someone’s hands were wrapped around it and squeezing with a slow, steady pressure. Tears filled her eyes, and a cold, tightening knot clenched in her chest as the voices gradually became louder and clearer.
“… We don’t like it…” she thought she heard one voice—a man’s—say.
“… like it here…” another man chimed in, his voice blending with the first one with an odd, echoing effect.
And even before those two statements were finished, another voice…a woman’s…said, “… here not without you…”
“Not without you…” they all chimed together, each voice slightly delayed after the other.
When Meg finally realized what she was hearing, she let out a screech and propelled herself back, away from the CD bin. The disc case she had been holding fell to the floor, where it hit edgewise and cracked open. She struggled to keep her balance, and she would have fallen on her butt if not for the bin of CDs directly behind her.
Everyone in the store who could see her stopped what they were doing and looked at her with shock, surprise, or faint amusement in their expressions. Jared, who was closest to her, darted forward and reached out to take hold of her shoulders with both hands. His pale face loomed close to her, looking like a huge full moon breaking through the midnight clouds.
“Whoa. You all right there?” he asked. His voice twisted high with concern.
Meg looked at him, forcing a smile as she bit her lower lip and nodded. She tried to say something, anything to reassure him, but the last breath she had taken—whenever that was—was locked up inside her lungs. The muscles in her arms and legs were trembling. Her heart was pounding so fast in her chest it made her neck and wrists ache.
“Meg?” Jared said. “What’s the matter?”
The dark haze that had started to close down in her mind began to lift. Only with effort could she take a shallow breath. She listened to the high-pitched whistling sound her nose and throat made.
“Jesus, you look like hell,” Kimberly said, coming closer but keeping a respectful distance.
Jared was still holding on to her shoulders. As she gradually came around, she found comfort and reassurance in his touch. She looked at him, and they locked eyes. Blinking rapidly, she took another breath and slowly nodded.
“Yeah, I…I have no idea what just happened.” She looked around at all of the faces staring at her and felt immensely uncomfortable. She felt like a specimen…a weird, alien specimen under a microscope.
“Damn,” Jared said with a tight smile. “It was like you had a stroke or a seizure or something. You don’t—ahh…”
He let what he had been about to say fade away, but Meg could see the worry in his eyes. She knew he was wondering if she had some freaky medical condition or something. She started shaking her head as her thoughts and perception gradually shifted back to normal. She was still tense, thinking about the voices she had heard—
Had she really heard voices? And what had they said?
She couldn’t remember now, and she told herself that it had to have been the sound of the wind outside…that and a lack of sleep and too much coffee combined with the weird lighting effect of the CD packaging to hit her like that.
She licked her lips, noticing how dry and papery they felt, and nodded with more determination.
“I guess I’m not used to staying up so late…and drinking coffee at this hour,” she said. Even as she said that, she knew how lame it sounded.
“You might wanna take a break,” Jared said. “Go out back and sit down. Catch your breath. Maybe even stick you head outside so the cold air will clear your head.”
“Umm,” she said, but all she could think was that sticking her head outside into the snowstorm was the last thing she was going to do. She did think that maybe she should take a bit of a breather, although she felt a twinge of guilt for not keeping her nose to the grindstone with everyone else. But she told herself that this was their job, not hers. All she was doing was helping out. She didn’t have to push herself to—and past—the point of exhaustion. She reminded herself where that had gotten her the last time she had done that.
