813 Magnolia Street It had been three hours since Jimmy went to her house. Larry was starting to wonder if his roommate had gotten lucky. He peered through the blinds toward her house. He could see the light continuing to burn on her porch, as well as the light in her living room. You couldn’t see much through her living room window, just the bookcase up against the wall, opposite the window. It had started out as a dare. Earlier this evening, Larry and his room mate Jimmy were sitting in his kitchen and talking about the girl that had moved in across the street from them, two weeks ago. Larry thought she was a hot one all right, but he knew that she was way out of his league. Now Jimmy, he thought he was God’s gift to women-–even though his advances were rejected more often than not. Either Jimmy’s perseverance had paid off, or something was wrong. It was Larry’s idea to go knock on her door. “And then what am I s'posed to do?” Jimmy had asked. “Introduce yourself. Welcome her to the neighborhood. Offer to show her around.” “Oh yeah, that’s brilliant!" Jimmy told him laying on the sarcasm. "That’s the worst pick up line I’ve ever heard in my life.” “What’s the problem?” Larry asked. “She couldn’t possibly turn you down, could she? You afraid you’ve lost your touch?” “Yeah--right,” Jimmy had said, dismissing the idea of him ever losing his touch as preposterous, crazy. “I dare you.” Larry had been half-joking when he said that. He knew that if Jimmy did go over there and knock on her door that he'd come back two minutes later with his tail between his legs, and make up a story about how she was into him, but wasn't his type. Apparently, most of the women in town weren’t his type. But it had been three hours since Larry saw Jimmy walk through her front door, and now he was thinking there may be something to all of Jimmy’s boasts regarding his "skill with the ladies". By ten o’clock that evening Jimmy still hadn’t returned. He’d been over there for four hours now and Larry was wondering what they could be doing over there. Jimmy must have gotten lucky—-the bastard. At ten-thirty he decided to call it a night, “Have fun,” he said giving one last glance out the window and then closed the blinds. Jimmy still hadn’t returned when Larry woke up the next morning. He needed Jimmy to help with the Needlemeyer job across town, so at nine o’clock he walked across the street to the woman’s house to wake Jimmy up. After knocking on the door, he waited. No answer. He looked through the window; no lights were on, and he couldn’t see anyone inside. He was about to knock on the door a third time when it opened. An attractive young woman with blonde hair peered out at him through the crack in the door, looking confused. “Hi,” Larry offered. “I’m here to get Jimmy." She stared at him inquisitively. “I’m sorry? Jimmy?” she said. “Yeah. We're late for work as it is.” “Um, I think you have the wrong house," she said, now looking embarrassed instead of confused. “Jimmy,” Larry stated in a flat voice. “There's no Jimmy here. Maybe you should check next door." She was beginning to look apprehensive. “I saw him. I saw him walk over here last night and I saw you let him in. Now could you get him for? We're gonna be late for work.” He stuck his head around the corner of the doorway and yelled, "Hey Jimmy! Get out your ass out here, we're gonna be late!" “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong house. Now if you’ll please excuse me,” she said and started to shut the door, but Larry stuck his foot in the door before she could. “Wait—wait a second. Does anyone else live here?" Larry said. She shook her head. Larry said, "The it was you I saw. Now come on, I saw him come over here. I was watching out my window, and I saw you let him in!” “Look, I don't know who this Jimmy guy is, and even though it's none of your business, I didn't have any visitors last night. I don't know how to say it any clearer. Now, if you don’t leave, right now, I’m going to call the police.” She looked genuinely upset. Larry pulled his foot away from the door, and she slammed it shut. He couldn’t have been mistaken about Jimmy going over there last night. Could he? No, of course not, this was the house he’d seen him walk into. He had no idea what was going on, but he was sure as hell going figure it out. In fact, Jimmy was probably at work right now, having a good laugh at Larry's expense. How’s Jimmy going to get to work? He doesn’t have a car. You’re his ride, he thought. When Larry arrived at work, Jimmy wasn’t there. He still hadn’t shown up by five o’clock when Larry left. After coming home from work, there was still no sign of Jimmy and Larry was getting increasingly concerned. After sitting down and thinking the situation over for a while, he decided he would go back to the woman’s house. He wanted to get to the bottom of this. There was no answer when Larry knocked on the door. He looked around to see if anyone was watching and then walked to the back of the house to check the back door. It was locked as well. Looking inside the window he could see into the kitchen. A pair of headlights appeared, coming down the street toward him. He panicked and ran back around front and then across the street, back to his house. A moment later, the woman's car pulled into the driveway of the house across the street. It was her. Larry watched from his kitchen window as she looked around and then ducked inside her house. For a second, Larry thought she had looked right at him, but that was impossible; the light was off inside his house; there was no way she could see him. By the next morning, there was still no sign of Jimmy. It was time to call the police. Larry was about to do just that when he looked out the window and saw the woman get in her car and drive away. Seeing an opportunity, he walked across the street to her house and went around back to the kitchen door. Something was wrong inside that house and he knew it. He removed the small hammer he’d brought with him from his pocket and smashed the window. Removing a few jagged pieces of glass from the window frame, Larry reached inside and unlocked the door. An unsettling feeling atmosphere filled the house. Larry felt like he was walking into a fog. There was an underlying, rotten smell throughout the house. Even though there were plenty of windows in the kitchen, the light failed to penetrate through, leaving the kitchen dark and uninviting. Larry walked through the kitchen to the living room and it was the same in there as well, there just wasn’t as much light as there should have been. The living room was bare; there was no television, no books on the bookcase, no pictures on the wall. There was no sign of decoration anywhere. There was a door next to the bookcase on one wall, probably a closet, he thought, and straight ahead of him was the front hall and door. "Jimmy! Hey Jimmy!" he said and then walked through the front hall to the bedroom in back. An undressed bed was pushed into the corner of the small room, and that was the extent of the furniture, it was bare as well. A quick search of the closet revealed no clothes, no items of any kind. "Jimmy! You in here?" Larry called out, toning his voice down so he wouldn't be heard outside. He thought: Where is all her stuff? The bathroom was next. It was empty too, not a single item in the cabinets, no soaps or shampoos; not even a toothbrush. The house looked uninhabited, even though the woman had been living here for two weeks. Larry had checked the entire house and there was no sign of Jimmy anywhere--no sign that Jimmy had even been there at all. Maybe he had been mistaken, Larry thought. Maybe Jimmy did walk into the house next door and not this one. No, Larry thought, remembering the other night. We were talking about that woman; Jimmy came over here, I remember seeing the address, 813, above the door as Jimmy walked inside. No, this was the right house. Okay then, where's Jimmy then? This place is clearly empty. It’s time to go to the police, talk to someone who can do something about this and stop fooling around inside this house. That sounded like a good idea, so walked back to the kitchen to leave. He made it as far as the living room when he heard a car pulling into the driveway. He looked out the window and saw the woman’s car. Trying not to panic, Larry backed up against the wall and stifled a scream as he hit a doorknob. He turned around and saw the closet. A moment later he heard a car door shut, followed by the clicking sound of high heels on the driveway as the woman walked up to the house. Larry reached behind him grasping the doorknob and turned it, opening the closet door behind him while facing the front door. He heard keys jingling as the woman unlocked her front door and stepped backwards into the closet, and then shut the door, just as he heard her walk inside. It was too dark to see anything inside the closet. A small wedge of light came in under the door, and the rotten smell that had filled the entire house was stronger in here. He held back a scream as he stepped backward and hit something on the floor. Side-stepping whatever it was, he pushed himself against the back wall of the closet. The clicking of sound of her heels resumed as the woman walked across the wooden floor of the front hall and into the living room. Larry’s heart skipped a beat as he saw a shadow appear under the door. He held his breath, waiting for the door to open and her to discover him. He exhaled a second later when the shadow moved away and he could hear her walking toward the kitchen. It really stinks in here, he thought. How can she stand it? Larry had no idea what he was going to do. He could either wait in the closet for her to leave and then run out the back door, or he could wait for her to walk to the other end of the house and then bolt out the front door. There's also option number three, he thought. Give it up. Step out of the closet, confess, and hope she doesn't call the police. He was too scared to go with the first two options, so he was seriously considering the third. What if she did find me in here? What could she do? Call the police? If she does that, she'll have to answer some questions about Jimmy. But even if she does knows where Jimmy is she might lie about it. It's her word against mine, and whatever she says is gonna sound a lot more plausible to a cop than what the guy who broke into her house and hid in her closet says, he thought. He discarded all three options and chose to do nothing for the time being. Larry saw her shadow pass under the door again and he held his breath. He wondered if she had noticed the broken window in the kitchen; there was glass all over the floor. The anticipation was awful. Each minute he stood inside the closet waiting—-the rotten smell assailing his nostrils--seemed like an hour. For the next few minutes, everything was silent, and the pressure gauge in Larry’s mind was climbing into the red toward panic. He had to get out of there – had to, it was either run or go crazy. He leaned against the door and listened—-nothing. Thinking that she might have left without him hearing, his hand crept toward the doorknob. He was going to go for it—-just throw the door open and run like hell, and not look back. Larry's hand closed around the doorknob as he heard the sound of her heels clicking across the floor once again. He pulled his hand back, and listened. There were muffled footsteps and a shadow appeared under the door as she walked across the living room carpet back to the kitchen. He tried to recall the layout of the house. How visible is the living room from the kitchen? He thought he might be able to run out the front door while she was in the kitchen. He found that he didn’t care if he was seen or not. He couldn't take it, he needed to get out of there, right now. Larry reached for the doorknob again, and the woman's shadow reappeared under the door, this time remaining there. To his dismay, he saw the knob start to move. He looked around the closet for a place to hide. He felt like an animal trapped in a cage. There was no place to hide. Closing his eyes, he waited for the door to open. Larry imagined her standing there in the doorway, catching him red-handed with a shocked look on her face. A second passed, then another—-nothing. He gathered the courage to open his eyes; the door was still shut and the shadow was gone from beneath the door. Breathing a sigh of relief, Larry listened closely. He heard nothing at first, but then heard the sound of her heels clicking down the front hall, followed by the sound of the of the front door as it opened and then slammed shut. Thank God, he thought. Oh thank God, she’s gone. Larry had been in the closet for less than fifteen minutes, but those fifteen minutes had felt like hours. Now that the woman was gone, relief swept over him and he opened the door, letting the pale light flood in. It took Larry's eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light. He looked toward the front door, and there she was, standing a few feet from the door with her legs spread a few inches apart and her arms crossed. There was a smile on her face and her eyes were burning with pure evil. “Hello Larry,” she said, smiling. “I was wondering when you were going to come out of there.” Her smile widened and Larry could see that see complete lunacy reflected in her eyes. He could see it on her face—-she was crazy. He managed to utter one word: “Jimmy.” She laughed. Her laugh had a deep and gravely sound to it that was as insane as her eyes. She used one finger with an abnormally long, red fingernail, to pointing toward the closet. Larry, pale as a ghost, eyes wide as saucers, turned around, looking behind him to the closet. Inside, lying on the floor of the closet no more a foot from where Larry had been standing was Jimmy. He was propped up, against the wall; his eyes half-open and glassy, staring at the floor. Blood, that had long since dried stained the floor around his body and covered his shirt. There was a ragged, bloody wound on his shoulder where his arm used to be and a large chunk of flesh was missing from the side of his neck. He was missing a leg. Unable to comprehend what he was seeing, Larry turned around to look at the woman. She was a step closer now. Her lips parted, revealing her teeth and Larry could see long incisors protruding from the upper part of her mouth. She took another step forward revealing a row of razor sharp teeth that comprised the lower part. Paralyzed with fear, Larry was unable to move as she stepped closer, now less than a foot away. In town, everyone went about their business: The mechanic over at Harper’s Garage continued to work on an old Buick. . . The old woman continued to browse the greeting cards at the drug store, looking for just the right card to give her granddaughter for graduation. . . The middle-aged man was lying in bed with a girl who neither his wife nor over the age of eighteen. . . The teenager chewing bubble gum continued to take orders through her headset at the McDonalds down the street. . . The junkie was tying a rubber strap around his arm, anticipating the feel of the needle as he injected heroin into his vein. . . The elementary school principal continued filling out the requisition form for a new Xerox machine to replace the old one in the library. . . And the young woman smiled as she placed the last piece of her “Southern Wilderness” puzzle into place. No one heard the screams that issued from 813 Magnolia Street.
Copyright © 2006 Johan Keylay |