Chapter 12 #2
Laura Simms’ house is…not at all welcoming.
I stand in front of it with Moro in my car, the windows half down.
It’s cool enough that I’m definitely not worried about her, and I’m not sure Laura would want a wolf dog showing up at her door, so leaving her seems like the more polite option.
But now that I’m standing on her stoop, with ivy and mold creeping up to frame the front door on all sides, I’m not so sure I should’ve left her.
This place feels…sad. I suppose that’s the right word for it, and I bite my lower lip between my teeth as I debate if I should even ring the bell. She might not be home, even though there is a car in the short driveway of the little house.
She might be dead.
Or asleep.
Or deaf, for all I know.
But I need to know, or at least do all I can to figure out if we saw the same thing like I think we did. So I cautiously reach up to ring the bell, hearing it reverberate inside of the house in long, rhythmic chimes.
“She’s definitely not secretly a murderer,” I whisper to myself as I hear a door closing and approaching footsteps. The old wood of the house creaks, and I stand there, trying to look harmless, while wondering if Laura is glaring at me through the peephole.
That’s what I would do, anyway. But then I also probably wouldn’t open the door to someone standing here like me.
I wait for a few moments, shifting from one foot to the other, not sure what to expect, before finally the old door with its peeling and flaky paint cracks open just enough for me to see someone standing behind it.
“Who are you?” The woman sounds older, like she’s in her mid-sixties, but that makes sense, given how long ago the ‘incident’ she was interviewed about happened.
“Hi, I’m Fern,” I answer honestly, linking my hands behind my back. “Sorry. I’m not trying to bother you.” Desperately hoping that politeness is the way to go here if I’m looking for answers. “I…I’m looking for Ms. Laura Simms?”
The woman doesn’t reply at once, and I get the feeling she’s scrutinizing me. I hold as still as I can, trying not to look impatient or fidget. Not that I succeed.
“Why?” The question comes out snappy, almost like a demanding bark. But I expected this, rather than a warm welcome. I’m a stranger, after all, and I’m sure she’s had a lot of people question or mock her over the article.
“Because last week at Bluebone Ridge Sanitarium something happened,” I say quickly, hopefully before she slams the door in my face. “And I want to know if I’m crazy…or if I really saw monsters.”
“So why come to me?”
“Because they were starving.”
She slams the door in my face. Hard. I stand there blinking, a little surprised by the aggressive strength of her slam, and after a few seconds I turn to look around the old, rundown subdivision.
No one else is outside, even though it’s early afternoon and the weather is still holding up, if a bit cloudy.
It’s cool for late summer, and my sleeves are pushed up to my elbows in the mild air.
Moro hangs her head out of the driver’s side window, tongue lolling as she watches me. She, at least, looks pretty at ease with the situation, and doesn’t really seem anything except interested.
But I just wait, hoping that something will change…only for it not to. Finally I sigh, shoulders dropping, and turn to walk off the porch.
I’m three steps down the sidewalk when the door creaks open again, the same amount as it had the first time, judging by the sound.
“That your dog in the car?” Laura Simms asks, because really, it can’t be anyone else.
“Yeah,” I say without turning. “Her name is Moro.”
“Don’t leave her in there. She’ll be bored.
Get your dog and come in, if you’re coming.
” There’s no kindness in her sharp words, but my stomach unclenches anyway.
I still don’t turn to look at her, though.
I don’t want her to revoke this strange invitation she’s suddenly given me.
Besides, I realize as I clip Moro’s leash on and let her jump out of the car to sniff along the grass.
I’d rather have Moro with me if I’m going into a stranger’s house than be there alone.
I worry a bit when I’m coming back up the concrete stairs and the door is still mostly closed.
But whether she decides at the last minute to let me in or if it’s Moro’s happy charm, her tail wagging, once I’m on the landing with the wolf dog’s leash in my hand, the door creaks open wider, revealing a hardwood floor entryway.
“Thank you.” It feels appropriate to say the words as I step inside and the door closes behind me with a sound of musical chimes that makes me turn.
A small instrument hangs on the door, wooden balls swinging over metal wires like a harp or a guitar.
I’ve never seen anything like it, and I watch the circular contraption as the balls slow and the musical sound becomes quieter, before I even think to look at Laura herself.
“My father made them,” she explains after seeing where I’m looking.
“He was into woodworking, and he made those for all of us kids and his wife.” She reaches up to trace her fingers along the metal wires, producing a very soft sound.
It gives me a chance to really look at her, and my heart twists at what I see.
Life has not been kind to Laura Simms. She looks eighty, instead of sixty, with heavy lines on her face and dark circles under ghostly grey eyes that seem pale with age.
Her hair is brittle and straw-like, thin enough that I can see her scalp through the white strands.
She’s hunched over a little, standing maybe five foot even with the decline, making me feel way taller than I ever have the right to.
I expected an intimidating, cold woman hardened by her experiences.
But I hadn’t expected such a frail, fragile-looking woman.
When she sees me looking at her, the smile on her face turns cool and unsurprised. “Not what you were expecting?” she asks, though I can tell she’s not looking for an answer. Her hand goes out to Moro, who sniffs her and then licks her thin, age-spotted palm.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” I admit, shrugging my shoulders heavily. “This is Moro, by the way. She belonged to a guard up at Bluebone Ridge until a week ago.”
Laura pins me with her gaze, curiosity rather than suspicion in her eyes. “Did you steal her?”
“She saved me and somehow found her way to my house. Her old owner is dead, though he didn’t treat her well.” I say it easily, without trying to sound defensive or like I’m expecting an interrogation about it. Honestly, I don’t think Laura cares much about the circumstances of how I got her.
But she looks at Moro in a new light and runs a hand over her head again.
“So you were the most recent alarm system, eh girl?” she asks, surprising me with the words.
“Only one dog? There were two back when I was there. I bet they told you some bullshit about her scaring off the local wildlife, right?”
“Was that not true?”
“You tell me. Did you ever see anything get close enough for her to scare off? Other than the monsters that attacked on Sunday?”
I shift uncomfortably, somehow surprised at how much she seems to know. “No,” I admit quietly. “All I ever saw was them. Those things, or whatever they are. But you saw them too, right? You?—”
She walks away, leaving me a little nonplussed and standing in the foyer of the small house.
But when Laura turns to look at me, I realize I’m supposed to follow her.
So I do, letting her lead me to a small kitchen with room only for appliances, a few cabinets, and a two-person table squeezed into the breakfast nook.
Laura gestures for me to take a seat, and I do, on the side of the table with less space.
Moro doesn’t need any coaxing, and stretches out on the floor beside me.
At least she’s easy to please and doesn’t seem to require much other than a few casual adventures, food, and a steady supply of belly rubs while we watch reality TV at home.
Laura walks over and sets down two glasses, both of them with tea and ice cubes that rattle delicately against the real crystal. Carefully, she levers herself into the seat across from me, taking her time and then looking up to study me the same way I’d studied her.
“I heard you were the only confirmed survivor,” she says grimly, her gaze never leaving mine. “How’d you do it?”
“How did I…” I trail off at the question.
Normally I’d lie or brush it off. But she knows what I saw, and I figure I can’t gain anything from lying to her if I want her to tell me what happened all those years ago.
“Moro saved me when I followed the sound of my name to the stairwell. It was strange. It sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it, you know? ”
“Oh, I know,” she assures me quietly.
“She saved me, and we got out. I don’t know what I was thinking, except that I needed to get off the mountain.
But another one attacked me in the parking lot.
I heard my name again, I think? This is where it gets a little foggy, actually.
” Absently, I press my fingers to my palm that’s now healed.
Still, there’s a shiny new scar just below my thumb where I cut into my hand with scissors, and it still twinges as I run my fingers over it with more force than I should.
“It bit me, sort of. Moro was trying to get it off of me. But I passed out. I guess she must have gotten it off of me, or killed it.” I nudge Moro with my foot, who thumps her tail on the floor.
“Unless something else distracted it, maybe?” But I shake my head.
“I really don’t know anything else. Two days later, I woke up in the hospital.
And lied to the cops,” I add. “I didn’t want to end up right back in another asylum. ”