Behind the Fire: A Dark Thriller (15 page)

As they disappeared around the corner of the theater, Crystal saw the rain had eased, the torrential rain reduced to flurries of imperceptible watery threads. She looked up at the dark, threatening sky and saw the abatement was most likely only temporary. If she was going to make an attempt to follow John to the car, this was her opportunity.

The thought John might already be on his way made her pause. What if he’d simply been delayed by a chance meeting with someone he knew? Or he could have been stopped by a phone call; they didn’t have hands-free in the car. For all she knew he was already on his way back—maybe even just around the corner.

Then darker thoughts brought their own argument: a mugging; John slipping, falling, and injuring himself. Then she had the sudden flash of a crazy image of the sharp beam of an alien ship filling the car; John ensnared by a blue light pulling him outward and upward.

The absurdity of the thought shook her into action. She would go crazy standing here with these crazy ideas running through her head. As if pushed, she lurched from the pavement, hurrying across the slick black street, glancing left and right as she went, hoping against hope she would sight John’s car. Grasping the lapels of her blue jacket, she clenched it closed as she hurried past other pedestrians who’d also decided to make a run for it.

She reached the other side, turning to take one final look before leaving the theater behind and taking off at a slow trot in the same direction she had seen John leave. There were still many people on the streets, forcing her to dodge and weave to keep up her hurried pace. A gray-faced man with a grim mouth, wearing a black beanie, sideswiped her as they passed each other, bumping her backward and causing her to momentarily lose her footing. She turned, expecting an apology, but received only his retreating hunched back.

Rain turned people into creatures no longer participating in the etiquette of life. That wouldn’t happen with John. He had manners rain or shine, cold or hot. He was considerate—not just of her, but that same consideration extended to the planet.

“Every choice we make impacts our neighbors and the Earth,” he often said. It was the reasoning behind the myriad of lifestyle choices he made. His passion easily convinced her to adapt to a
carbon-footprint minimization
lifestyle. They’d traded their car for a Prius hybrid, designed their new house to epitomize green power, and even turned their courtyard into a small hydroponic garden utilizing solar energy and gray water.

They’d even considered taking the train tonight, but changed their mind when it began to rain. Now she regretted that choice, for if they had gone by train they wouldn’t have separated, and she wouldn’t be running around the darkened streets of the city in the wet.

Two blocks disappeared behind her splashing footsteps. With each step her anxiety grew, not just because she was worried about John but because to her the city never felt safe at night. The tall buildings unnerved her. Their gray, hard facades felt aloof and judgmental, as if all the giant buildings were malevolently looking down upon her, just as John must imagine aliens looking down upon their planet.

How stupid, thought Crystal… Aliens looking down upon them? She really needed to get a grip, and do it before she found John.

Finally, after what felt like miles of running but which was only a few blocks, Crystal felt relief at the sight of the luminous, flashing “24 hour parking” sign up ahead. Below it, white and red-splotched reflections glowed in the glistening sidewalk. She stopped beneath it, at the entrance to the parking facility, and glanced around, once again searching for John or the car. It was uppermost in her mind how easy it would be for them to bypass each other.

A couple passed her. From behind, she heard the automatic glass doors of the parking structure glide open as they entered. She couldn’t stand there forever. So, with a final check, she turned and followed them inside.

Several people, along with the couple, stood silently in the aged yellow foyer gazing at the elevators. They looked toward her as she entered, before returning to their study of the finger-marked metal doors. Crystal stood to the side.

The elevator arrived moments later, but the small space filled quickly, leaving no room for her. Her stomach danced as she willed the next to arrive soon. Floor numbers lit up in agonizingly slow motion, as one of the two elevators travelled back while the other continued upward. A jaunty chime announced one's arrival. The doors slid open. Even before she'd entered, the sharp smell of urine assaulted her senses. She took a deep breath and held it as she prodded the fourth-floor button.

The elevator car moved rapidly to her floor. As it rose, so did Crystal’s annoyance. John had better have a good excuse for leaving her waiting, she thought. Along the way, she seen no sign of an accident, and she was certain she’d walked the way he would have driven back. That left a strong possibility he’d stopped for a phone call or to talk to someone.

He could be forgetful—preoccupied was probably a more accurate description. Regardless of what had happened, though, how could he keep her waiting like that? They rarely fought, but this time, when she did find him, she intended to show him the upset his delay had caused her.

The elevator arrived at the fourth floor, dinging loudly as it arrived. She shoved herself through the crack of the opening doors, breathing in the fresher air deeply. Her lungs were bursting; she’d only taken two breaths on the journey up.

Looking about the mostly empty concrete expanse, she saw there were only a few cars intermittently dotted across the floor. She set off toward the stairwell on the other side. They had parked their car there and walked down—taking the stairs conserved power. The click of her heels on the floor as she hurried along strangely echoed her own heartbeat. She quickened her pace as she rounded the final corner pillar, hopeful it would reveal their car with John inside.

The car was gone. The parking space where she felt certain they’d left the car was empty. She swung about, looking across the floor, double-checking she had the right place. Yes, this was right. There was a graffiti tag on the pillar next to their space, and she saw it was there.

Her stomach tightened.
Where was John?
Her shoulders slumped in dismay. She didn’t even attempt to prevent her bag from falling from her shoulder and catching in the crook of her arm.

They
must
have passed each other.

Now
John
would be the worried one, when he discovered her gone from the theater.

Crystal pushed her bag strap back onto her shoulder. Clutching it gave her a strange sense of security. It was something solid and familiar on a night that had so quickly turned to disarray. After one last furtive glance at the parking spot, she hurried back to the elevator. Travelling down, she saw no one. The parking lot this late at night had emptied quickly.

The street greeted her with a glistening vacancy. Above her, open patches of sky revealed twinkling stars and a bright, fat moon.

“Rain, rain stay away. Come again when I find John,” she sang under her breath. A panic was rising in her. Without concern about slipping or that she damage her shoes, she began to run back to the theater, puddles of water snatching at her footsteps.

She thought about John possibly waiting in the car outside the theater, and imagined him wondering where she had gone.
Serve him right for taking so long.
Then the image disappeared, and the only thought in her head was how desperate she was to find him—and how she would climb in the car and hug him and scold him all at once. She knew her relief at finding him would override her anger at leaving her waiting. Maybe she’d even share with him that she’d imagined aliens had taken him.

Suddenly, she found herself across the road from the theater. She’d been deep in thought, overwhelmed by her anxiety, and hadn’t realized how quickly she’d covered the distance.

The theater was an imposing building, its sandstone glory brilliantly lit. A memory of the show that night caught her. The feeling of her hand snuggled inside John’s as she leaned into him, warmed her heart as she ran across the road, looking up and down the street. The city sounds grew silent, as if a giant plastic bubble had surrounded her. By the time she’d made it to the other side, she’d gone from happy to holding back tears. The street, though still filled with a few dawdling cars, was empty. John wasn’t there.

Another ten minutes passed as she waited, until it became overwhelmingly clear staying there was pointless. If John were coming back for her, he would have been there by now.

A crazy idea struck her: what if something terrible had happened, something to do with his research, and he was forced to rush home? Maybe he was waiting there for her, had sent her a message, not realizing she didn’t have her phone with her. What the emergency might be she couldn’t imagine, but where else could he be?

It took another ten minutes of pacing the pavement before she managed to hail a cab. Now, thanks to the stress, she had a headache coming on. With each passing minute, it grew worse. By the time she stepped into the cab, a drum solo had begun inside her skull.

‘The rain,” said the cabbie, “the rain always creates chaos.”

Forgetting your phone didn’t help either.

The rain-blurred nightscape rushed by the window, filled with the fuzzy red-and-white outline of cars and streetlights. She sat in silence, hoping the driver would get the message she didn’t want to talk. In her lap her hands twisted together as if they had a mind of their own. If John wasn’t home, what would she do?

As the cab entered their street, she craned her head toward the front seat to look ahead. Even at a distance, she could see their house was lit up, every light in the house turned on.

He
was
home. A flush of joy and relief flooded through her, headache easing almost instantly. She paid the driver, but as she did she kept glancing toward the house. Something about it unsettled her. It was as if something very obvious stared right at her, but she was missing it entirely. She would worry later. Right now, all she wanted to do was get inside, find John, and hear what had happened. Even before the driver handed over her change, she’d leapt from the car and hurried up the front path.

“John?” she called, as she flung open the door. John, where are you? God, you had me worried.”

Silence. Stillness.

She rushed through the living room to the hall, throwing her coat and bag over the sofa. Her bag missed the chair and fell to the floor. She didn’t stop to retrieve it; she just wanted to find John. Moving up the hall toward their bedroom, she continued to call his name. Even before she’d looked beyond the living areas, it became clear why he hadn’t answered.

The house was empty. John wasn’t there.

Crystal shivered, as if splashed with ice water. Something was wrong in the house. The moment felt like one of those pick-the-difference pictures—at first glance, everything looks identical but, under scrutiny, the mistakes become obvious. In Crystal’s mind there was no doubt something had happened in the house, even though everything looked the same as it had before they left for the theater.

She walked back down the hallway, pausing at the key peg to check for John’s keys. Empty. Frighteningly empty. Disconcertingly empty.

A feeling of strangeness tickled the back of her neck. Slowly she turned to look up and down the hall. John might not be there now; he might not have come home at all, but something told her someone had been in their house.

As she moved quietly back down the hall to enter the kitchen, she looked around as she went for something with which to defend herself. On the kitchen counter she spied a block containing knives. Choosing the largest, she slid it out and held it before her. At the thought of using it on an intruder, her heart began to beat in double time.

She moved back through the house, systematically checking each room. With each step she told herself she was being stupid, that she was imagining everything. What she needed to do was start calling hospitals, because John being involved in an accident was about the only thing that now made sense.

First she would check the house, just in case.
Just in case of what?
She didn’t know, but she wanted to be sure she hadn’t missed a clue to what had happened to John. A note he had left, perhaps.

Her hand shook as she entered through each room’s doorway, knife first, her heart beating so hard it sounded to her as if it were echoing off the walls. Each room was empty. No burglars, no axe murders, and no aliens greeted her—and, no John.

After checking every room in the house, Crystal returned to the kitchen, putting the knife back in the block. She’d seen nothing out of place in her search, but the subtle feeling of wrongness crawled over her like a nagging itch. The culprit of her undoing tonight sat charging in its cradle on a side counter, its charge light flashing a merry green.

Green
.
Green!

The sudden realization hit her, and she immediately turned and ran to the study. Of course, now she knew what had felt so off. John would never compromise on his obsession with living “green,” as he called it. So that’s what she’d seen and felt from the moment the cab pulled up outside. If she hadn’t been so worried, she might have seen it immediately.

In moments she was at the study door, flinging it open so hard it smacked against the wall and bounced back. She stood there, sucking deep breaths of air into her lungs, while her gaze travelled around the room.

The bookshelf was untouched, the books standing neatly at attention, like little soldiers awaiting their next command. John’s collection of alien books had grown dramatically, she noticed, with many piled haphazardly, one on top of another. On his desk, papers filled with graphs and pictures perched precariously in piles. Fluorescent highlighters and several pencils lay scattered among the mess.

His swivel chair sat empty, a reminder he was out there, not here with her where he should be. Crystal closed her eyes, willing John to be there. In her mind’s eye, she saw him sitting at his computer poring over the data streams from the field equipment located in Antarctica, Chile, Hawaii, Australia, and other far-off places she couldn’t even pronounce.