Loss, a paranormal thriller (4 page)

A year later, after Angie accepted Paul's proposal, the first wedding invitation she sent out was to their mailman. 

5.

"That's a true story?"  Angie pulled away from Paul.  They'd made love once passionately, then dozed for a timeless respite, before Angie crawled on top of him and started again, this time with painstaking slowness.  The sun was beginning to dip below the trees.  She must have dozed again.  It was so easy being in Paul's arms. 

Paul cleared his throat and wiped sleep drool from his cheek.  She didn't care if he drooled in his sleep.  He was Paul Chandler, and she would soon be his wife.  Nothing else mattered.  "What, Harvey and Betty?  Well, I'm not sure if Harvey drove a Studebaker, but it seems like the kind of car he would've owned.  They were married for fifty-one years before Harvey died three years ago.  Two weeks later, Betty died in her sleep."

"Did it happen here?"  She felt a sudden chill as she scanned the gutted home, as if the Winchells could see their nakedness and castoff clothes strewn about their former dining room floor.

"Oh, no, nothing like that.  They retired to live near one of their daughters in Arizona."

"How did you learn about them?"

"It was a big story in the Grand View Gazette when the property came on the market.  That was ten years ago.  It was the last property not annexed to the state park."

"Like an island in the forest sea," Angie said, relaxing back into his arms.  She felt warm, relaxed, safe.

"Exactly.  That's how I've thought of it.  The park dates back to the 1930s and the Civilian Conservation Corps.  At the time, dozens of other homes existed inside the boundaries, but as the properties came on the market, the state bought them.  All but this one.  I'd heard through the grapevine that the Winchells were moving and would sell the property.  I stepped in before it became public knowledge.  By the time the Gazette ran their story, I had an agreement in principle with the Winchell's family."

"Sneaky, aren't we?"

"I was barely out of college and didn't know what I was going to do with my life--well, I always knew I was going to work with my brothers, but that's a job, not life, you know?  I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew I wanted to live here, surrounded by nature, and without the threat of bulldozers rumbling in to tear it all down.  The house has been vacant since the Winchells moved away--all I've done in that time is basic maintenance.  I started tearing down the old plaster the week I met you."

"That's presumptuous of you."

"No, just hopeful."  He kissed her slowly, lingering.  "Let me show you around."  He stood, unashamed of his nakedness.  She watched him pull on his boxers and jeans.  He offered his hand and helped her to stand. 

She draped the picnic blanket around her.  "Let's see what I'm getting myself into."

"Here," he said, waving his hand through a long arc.  "This open space--there used to be a dining room there, and a sitting room, there.  I tore down the walls to open it up to a great room.  Maybe not as great a great room as Bryce's."

"I can picture it."

"Can you picture a fireplace with a sixteen foot mantle going in on this wall?  Fletcher's going to do the work when I'm ready for it.  And there's going to be three skylights, which I'll do myself."

"Paul, your dream is wonderful."

"But it wouldn't be complete if you weren't here to share it with me."

"Stop, you're going to make me cry again."

He kissed her forehead, and one tear did slip down her cheek.  She couldn't remember ever being so happy, had never imagined the possibility.

"You're an angel, you know that?"

At hearing his voice, Angie felt herself floating, drifting away from Paul's touch, from the warmth of their future home, from the possibilities of a shared love and life.

Angel, what would I ever do without my Angel?

She looked down and saw herself standing with Paul, felt the distance looming, felt a growing emptiness.

She heard Paul's voice, but the figures below her were no longer moving, had become as inert as statuary.  His warm timbre sent a shiver through her: "And this, this is heaven."

Her stomach dropped and adrenaline lanced through her heart.

She blinked several times, her feeling of disembodiment dissipating.  Paul stood to her left, smiling at her.  He took her hand, concerned. 

"Something wrong?"

"No.  Just a weird feeling."

They were now standing on the balcony off the great room.  Behind them, inside, a wall of empty bookshelves framed the French doors leading to the second story view.  This was Paul's heaven.  While inside the home was his refuge, the balcony, with its idyllic and breathtaking backdrop, was his heaven.

She turned to look at the doors, and though they should have been illuminated as bright as day, they stood in the depths of midnight darkness.  She heard a sing-songy voice coming from the darkness on the other side: 
Angel, love my Angel...
Paul's voice.  Drunk and slurry-thick.

She squeezed Paul's hand.  "Did you hear that?"

"Hmm?" he said, staring at the old growth forest, the rugged hills, the dirt trail leading deeper into the wilds that had been honed from the wood by his endless miles running.

This is my dream.
 

Once again she heard Paul's disembodied voice coming from inside, but this time taken from the moments before his proposal. 

Then she felt a sudden understanding.  "This is
my
dream," she said. 
Am I dreaming
, she thought. 
What happened? 

She let go of Paul's hand, but he didn't seem to notice, rather, he remained motionless, his eyes glazed and fixed, gazing out over the endless acres of the surrounding forest.  She approached the French doors, but while she couldn't see inside, she felt something was inside, staring back at her.

"Let me show you," the voice from inside called out.  Paul's voice.

She glanced back at Paul.  He had stepped closer to the balcony's edge, placing a hand on the rail.Her stomach lurched

as if sharing with him a sympathetic vertigo.

"No peeking," the voice called, turning her back around.  "I'm going to tell you a story."

She heard Paul move, looked over in time to see him swinging a leg over the rail.

"Paul, stop!  What are you doing?"

"Let me show you."  The voice from the house had become thicker, a sly thing, a trickster's voice.  She felt a violent tug of her shoulder, a force that whipped her head around and started dragging her back toward the darkened doors.

"This is heaven," Paul said from the edge of the balcony, and then silence and a sudden sense of loss.  And emptiness so vast and final she nearly became sick.

"Paul, baby, say something."  The force held her in its grip and she could no longer turn around.  But she knew he was gone.  Over the edge.

The French doors opened, and a pall of darkness seeped from inside, greeting her.  It swept over her limbs, gripped her waist like the embrace of a desperate lover, pulling her inside.  She heard the doors close behind her, but could no longer see.

Chapter 3

A painful coldness pierced her flesh, but she was helpless to avoid the discomfort.  It followed her movements.  The unsettling feeling pulsed in her arm, and traced, like a corpse's finger, to her shoulder, and there it throbbed like a heartbeat.  This was her only sensation for a lengthy time--a stabbing iciness that somehow felt both distant and seeded deep into her soul.

Her eyes fluttered opened to the glare of white light, and its purity and brightness brought tears to her eyes.  She could have closed them again to shut out the harshness, but she feared the darkness would return, and if it did, would never relent.  She let the tears form and fall down her cheeks.

Someone scrambled nearby as if startled.  "Angie?"

It was a familiar voice. 
Paul?
she thought, trying to remember.

"Oh, God, Angie--someone get a doctor.  We need a doctor in here!" 

A face pushed into the halo of her vision, too blurred to distinguish.  It came closer, and then dry lips brushed a kiss against her forehead. 

"We thought you were, oh God..."

She blinked until her eyes focused. 
No, not Paul.  Nathan.  Paul is...

(not now!)

"Thirsty," she said, her voice a frail croak.

"Sure, I'll get it."

"Don't... leave," she whispered, but her brother-in-law had already gone.

A door opened and people hurried into her room.  She saw glimpses of them shifting through her field of view, just glimpses, since they moved faster than her ability to refocus.  A man in a white coat.  A doctor.  Two women in pink scrubs.  Nurses.  They checked her pulse, her reflexes, pupil dilation, though she could now feel the machines attached to her to serve these functions.  Wires clipped to her dressing gown, an IV stabbing her vein (the source of the stabbing cold, she realized), medical tape strapped to her arm.  She felt a sudden pang of claustrophobia.

A familiar face drifted by her vision.  She focused, could make out a smile, a tired, strained smile in such a welcomed face.

"Linz," she said, trying to match her smile, but failing.

Her sister-in-law squeezed between the doctor and one of the nurses still checking on her, and grabbed her hand.

"Glad to have you back, Angie," the doctor said.  She took in his unfamiliar features: fine silver hair growing to a widow's peak, teeth too straight and too white not to be false, a long hooked nose.  His roguish aftershave mingled with the antiseptic of the room.  Her stomach turned and she feared vomiting.  "My name is Dr. Gathwright."

"Paul?"

Lindsey spoke before the doctor could answer.  "Ang...  It's a miracle you're awake.  You suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung.  A broken wrist.  Frostbite..."

Her laundry list of injuries was of no concern.  Angie's head was fuzzy, most likely swimming in a pool of medications, but her mind pushed on to more pressing matters.  Paul, and-- "There was... a man.  In the snow." 

Someone else entered the room.  She managed to turn her head far enough to see Nathan standing near the door, holding a paper cup, hesitant to come closer.  He exchanged a look with Lindsey, a look Angie didn't like.  A weighted look.  Anguished, regretful.

"A man... in the snow.  I remember..." she tried to continue, to pull the shattered pieces of her memory back together.

Lindsey patted her hand.  "Shh, Angie, you need your rest.  There's plenty of time."

"He was just standing there.  In the snow.  A shadow.  Looking down on..."

"Mrs. Chandler, please," Dr. Gathwright said, blocking her family from view.  "You need to relax.  You've suffered great trauma."

"He was watching us.  Me and... Paul. 
Paul
--" she said, remembering.  "Oh, God, where is he?  Is he okay?"

"Sis, it was a terrible accident.  There was nothing anyone could do--"

"Paul!"  Her strength was gathering, she felt it shirking the languor of unconsciousness, the lethargy of drug-sleep.  "Tell me!  Where is he?"  Her vision shot with stars and dimmed as she tried to sit up. 

Lindsey sat on the edge of the hospital bed, leaning closer, gaining Angie's full attention.  She whispered into her ear, "He didn't make it, Sis.  There was nothing anyone could do.  No one knew about the crash until morning.  He's gone.  I'm sorry."  Emotion choked off any further explanation.

Her sister-in-law brought her cheek next to Angie's, and she muttered through her tears, "Sorry, Sis, so, so sorry."

Angie saw Nathan in the background, standing with the hospital personnel, who had all stepped back as if they feared being swept into the blight of loss.  She felt anger at their distance, their hesitance.

"Lindsey..." Angie said.  Lindsey trembled against her.  "Lindsey, I need to see him."

"I'm... I'm sorry, Sis."  Lindsey pulled away, crossed her arms, shifting to the periphery, unable to speak.

Nathan stepped forward, still holding the cup of water.  "Angie... we..." he said, looking to the foot of her bed.  He took a steadying breath.  When he exhaled, he looked into her eyes.  "We had to make a decision.  As a family."

"What are you talking about?"

"Paul was buried ten days ago."

The world whirled beneath Angie, collapsing under the weight of Nathan's words.  She closed her eyes to blink away a tear, but couldn't reopen them.  She slept until the next morning.

Chapter 4

Until she left the hospital, the four feet to the bathroom had been Angie's longest walk since regaining consciousness, and even that had seemed a feat of endurance.  Steadily, the pain receded from her wounds: the sensation in her ribs had gone from a shooting pain to an uncomfortable pressure, to a mad aching, while her wrist now only itched in its protective air cast.  Weakness tread in the wake of healing, and she carried its burden like an added gravity.  Every motion took concentration, from raising her hand to reach her glass of water, to holding the paperback novel steady as she read.  Dr. Gathwright and the nurses had urged her to venture the hallways, to get her feet under her, maybe step outside for some fresh air.  Each time she'd refused, instead, keeping to the solitude of her room.  They seemed content to give her space, for the time being, to let her feel what she was feeling on her own terms.  Then, six days after waking, they sent her back out into the world.

She was out of breath when she reached Nathan's Volkswagen.  She almost laughed at how pathetically out of shape she felt.  What would Paul think of her as she struggled her achy muscles through the simple act of walking?  Paul, who woke at dawn everyday for an hour run on the nature trails surrounding their house.  Paul, who at least once a month entered a road race, and often came home with a trophy. 

Paul, who dear, God, Paul...

"Angie, you okay?" Macy asked from the front passenger seat of Nathan's Volkswagen.  Her tortoise frame glasses and short spiky hair were just too cute for Angie to take this morning.