Serene Rex

Serene Rex

The boots in the corner are his or were his and she has been ignoring them since she came back to their summer cabin. She sat in the car for an hour before coming inside but the sun was starting to go down and she had already lost the day. Her desire was an early morning arrival to get this place ready to be sold. She was sure it would be a mess outside but this was not the case she thought the basement would be flooded but Nathan’s repair seems to be holding.

Sitting in the car, tears falling into her lap, she could see out-of-season flowers in the bushes around the side yard. Just above the flowers floated a face in the shimmering of her tears. Rubbing her eyes did not make it better but when her eyes cleared the face was gone.

Alice looked at the lake. It's a step from every property in the cove of cabins. The water lay placid, still holding a line of the sun on its surface. The small walkway from the house onto the water where they fish and swam from was there but just above the surface of the water.

The Lake was called Serene, not Serene Lake or Lake Serene but Serene like it was a person in the community, like a family member or a lost love.

Being back here close to Serene was comforting and painful. The kids would swim here and her parents would visit with them here. Nathan’s parents would visit here. They shared ice cream and stories, bonfires, and their fair share of wine, beer, and rum. She and Nathan have also made love in the grass by the lake likely where their oldest was conceived. He picked her up and ran her outside with a blanket wearing nothing but his boots.

Alice laid Nathan’s ashes to rest in this lake.

In recent years with the kids gone and Nathan working for the Milton Trask Corporation they stopped making time. She stopped making time. Nathan had to pass here when calling into the office from home and late-night he would not even come all the way home since this cabin and Serene were about the halfway mark. It was fine at first but one night, to surprise Nathan, years ago, she found two cars out front. They never saw her headlights or heard the car but she saw his boots.

The boots in the corner were his. He sat them there before taking his life and scaring his family. Alice’s shirt was wet and when it would start to dry, another room, another memory, drawing more tears. Nathan kept an office here. Had the police had been through it? No one questioned how he died. The family therapist that she sees suggests that men rarely show outward signs before they… might do something like this.

Walking up to his desk she could see it was a mess. She was sure the police had been through it, the house, every room, but no one moved those boots. The desk was a mess way before covered in books and financial statements.

It was dark enough that she turned on the desk lamp. Putting things into a bag thinking she will go through it later. She finds cheap body spray from women in the drawer, a digital recorder, a laptop she did not recognize, and some notebooks.

Alice opened the laptop on the desk she cleared and sat down. Laptop powered on. She tried three passwords she knew he used in quick succession. They did not work. She flipped through the first page of the top notebook and his scrawl is readable with some effort. Just program notes for something at MTC.

Alice looks at the recorder in her hand. Will she hear Nathan’s voice if she presses play? “I should not have come up here alone,” Alice says aloud, feeling tears from puffy sore eyes. Curling into his chair she pushes play…

“Uh, two things to remember: email Megan, HR, she will want the video files they prove Carmen's stories about Sam. I did not believe her about the harassment but the EPA kickbacks were never in doubt. Last thing, order flowers for…”

The playback stops.

Thunder rolls making the cabin shake and the lights flicker. She was turning off each light as she left the room. This exaggerated the quiet, the solitude. Looking outside hoping to see moonlight on Serene but there was nothing. Darkness only passed her reflection like the whole world was missing.

The sound of running water echoed from somewhere in the house. Just as she was sure it was plastic sheeting and not running water Alice heard footsteps downstairs.

In the window, she is seeing nothing but her soggy reflection and the light of the office lamp. She reaches down and turns it off. The wind is kicking leaves and it is easy to see the pounding rain, even as her eyes adjust to see Serene under a starless sky. Her eyes dart around near the house and find a car that she is unsure about. Her breath catches in her throat for a moment before her eyes return to the outline of a lake she can just make out. On the shore, there is a movement that looks like a person walking. It is all matte darkness and the blowing wind makes branches move to block the little she thinks she can see. Then the figure stops and is looking in her direction, looking at her. They are not moving and when Alice closes her eyes to help them better acclimate to the dark she bites her lip.

When she opens her eyes everything before her is quiet. The figure is gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Being here, not just this place but in this darkness made her wonder how dull the letter opener was on the desk, and remembered the still fading scars on her legs and abdomen. Some areas bleed more but the pain, the feeling … She turned the light on and as she did a small tone that sounded very large went off in her hand.

The foolish little digital recorder went to sleep and emits a tone to alert the user. Turning on the light she looks down at her hand and curses the recorder. The letter opener was a relic, with rust or worse. There would be something better in the kitchen.

Alice reaches for the desk lamp then pulls her hand away. She walks to the door, considers putting the recorder down and flips on the overhead ceiling light. It stings her eyes for a second but she is headed into the darkened upstairs hall. In the hall, she stops to look down the stairs. There are multiple lights on, but she was turning them off as she left each room. The lights all around the house flickered with the passing wind and in the moments of darkness, she smelled cheap perfume.

She rushed downstairs and into the kitchen. Eyes on the silverware drawer but she grabs a mug with the 172 airborne mottos on the side “Let Him Beware ''. The kettle is on the stove and the tea bags are grabbed off the counter.

Alice looks at the hateful little recorder and presses play.

“Lace. She might not accept them but order them anyway they might brighten her day.”

Missing note.

“J, they are the ones ignoring the EPA. Whistleblower protections are a joke …Lace and I are going to work this out, So whatever you print cannot have my name in it.”

Her knees let go and she sat on the cool tile. The flowers had been for her but she was not sure if it was the ones she finally accepted.

“The box says these can be turned into mp3’s but I need to convert them to w. a. v. File type. J thinks he won’t be able to keep my name out of it and that the prosecutor wants D in this. How? Why? MTC is” He mumbles this but since she was his wife for more than 20 years she thinks he said Crime Family, murder for hire. The wind and the distance made the recording a shout from another plane of reality. A pause and a new recording: “J. you have everything but this. My life was threatened but I can’t worry about that now. You know Ronda?” He laughs “Crazy. I know. We went off-road to get those scratches. I’m sure only Lace believed that. Full truth, it was Ronda, the Honda Hatchback that knows everything. move the cabin spare key. Don’t talk to Lace. She knows none of this and I want to keep her safe. now that we are doing fine now that we are going to make it. …”

Lace or Alice jumps off the floor feeling like she forgot something and wondered if the spare key was still there. She looked toward the front and someone was standing on the porch. She could just see the top of their head as they walked to the left. Turning to the counter she pulled the drawer she had been looking at and grabbed a knife. She took a small step toward the door when the kettle blasted, making her jump. She grabs it and takes her eyes off the front door and never sees the tall person's head bob back to the front.

There are three hard knocks on the door that sounded louder than the kettle. “Alice it's D,” She stood still pressing the flat side of the cool blade to her arm. “I mean Darius.”

She threw the knife at the counter and ran to the door. She took a deep breath before locking and then unlocking and opening the door. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long,” Darius must have seen something he did not like because he took a few steps back. Alice brushed at her hair and pulled the LSU sweater she was wearing down. Her eyes followed his gaze to its seams.

“You should go home, young man,” Alice said, turning from the door and walking back to the kitchen ignoring the rise of her sweater to her hips. When she turns the corner she sniffs and wipes her nose.

Darius leans into the door and then steps in. A fit, twenty years younger than Nathan. He sniffs the air, getting a smell that reminds him of his teen daughters. All the sprays they leave around the house. He looks up the stairs that are by the door and a door closes as if ….

“Home! You should go home?” Alice says, grabbing her cup and adding more hot water.

“Okay, You have all the help you need? I guess.” Even though he agreed he turns and shuts the door. Darius looks at some old but expensive boots in the corner. “If I did not know you were up here I would not have come. It’s raining lite but the news is giving a flood warning.”

“Well, you’re here now or we are here now. What do you want?” Alice let a shoulder come out of the cut-neck sweater. “Do you think he would want me to offer you something to drink?”

“I think he would but I am not … thirsty just now.” There is a bang upstairs and a click that sounds like a switch.

“Who’s the help?”

“No one,” They both say while looking at each other waiting to hear something else.

“How are you here? By yourself? No one for fifty-plus miles and that’s if the nearest village water was not also contaminated.”

“Who's up there?” Lace calls out. Only silence in return.

Darius whispers “I’ll check it out, go to my car,” he pulls a small handgun from the appendix carry position.

“There's no one, I've been here all this alone, do you think I would cheat?” She stopped talking and watched his eyes. They widened for a moment as he looked back at her. “Darius.”

He let out a sigh and ran upstairs into the dark. Stomping at first then slowing as if to sneak. Alice returned to her mug and sat at the table, wishing she could put her knees into her sweater like she used to.

Darius checks the rooms leaving every light on in the process. He comes back around the corner holding the gun toward the ceiling action hero style not looking like MT Corporate executive at all. He slides the gun back into the front holster while she considers that he is bigger in length and girth than the gun and … She looks at his feet ashamed of not the thought but what happened before.

Darius smiles, it fades when he sees his boots. “Okay, Let’s get out here.” He says and continues on about the lake and how he can’t stand the smell. She goes to the stairway and looks up at him.

Rain falls outside in thick sheets.

She won’t blink or close her eyes. She is looking at him and running her hands around her midsection and he understands and wraps his arms around her. She sighs and he can smell the tea, it’s sweet and somehow normal.

She leads him upstairs, and with the storm raging outside, they could be the only people in the world.

Later in bed.

“I found this.” She rewinds and plays back some of the tapes. Forgetting about the flowers but is delighted to hear, again, they had been for her.

The talk about everyone leaving and destroyed, abandoned cars, and that checked out so she was more alone than she thought.

Water pounds on the window.

“Let's finish this tape,” Darius says

“No, no, I want to load a copy onto the computer then finish it.”

“Maybe there are other copies, I can finish it while you sleep and load to the laptop at the same time.”

Alice picks up her sweater and goes from nude to semi-dressed and gets in the covers.

She falls asleep to her dead husband's voice.

Thunder and rain slamming the house wake her.

“Not a reminder but insurance for you, maybe me. But I don’t know who I can trust. I think Darius would back my play. We nearly destroyed the earth together, surely we can save it…”

She sits up in time to see Darius erase the file.

He starts the next one. “Ronda doesn't want me to tell him but now that he is a man and we have gotten so close I should tell him.”

Darius deleted the file as Nathan was speaking.

“You know, Hatchback?” Then it came to her that the smell of cheap perfume and the oddly parked car and Darius showing up out of nowhere. Understanding dawned on her face. “How could you sleep with both of us? How could…”

The lights in Alice's eyes went out as she was hit from the right. The butt of the gun made her blood gush from her head. Ronda stands over her sneering.

Water pounded the side of the house. The crack of thunder followed by the generator going out.

“We might be trapped now but she goes first. She is not going to die in her sleep. It's been hours. Finish it before she wakes up?” Ronda said.

A flashlight comes on and the bed is empty. They look around and see Alice slip into the hallway.

Laughter from Darius as Alices gets to the stairs. She understands when her foot lands in water on the third step down this storm has flooded the first floor. “You should have been paying attention to the radio,”

Alice dives headfirst into the water. Ignoring the currents, she swam for the front door. Following the banister she pushes off the last step, feeling the water press against her wound. In the dark, she is grabbed from behind by the sweater. She hopes that it is Ronda.

Flashlight’s shine into the water and she can see the door is shut. The light does not travel far in the darkness and as the arm curls around her neck, she can see Nathan's face peering from the darkness. He is saying something. “The boots,”

Ronda is pulling her up so she can take a breath and at the last second she pushes her down. Lace lays in the water holding her breath. Bullets whiz past her and bounce off the floor after slowing in the water.

Waiting no longer she goes for the boots that are still in their place on the flood and they are heavy and as she grabs them the water surges to the second floor and the front door burst open in a rush of a current that pulls her hair toward the stairs.

In the dark still unable to breathe a whirlpool drags a light from upstairs toward her and out the door into the darkness beyond. Someone was attached to that light.

Her feet stood in Nathan’s boots. They were too big and she needed to surface now or drown. Her lungs demanded air and she was ready to give in. She pulled the boots and found she could move them.

Once on the stairs and taking big gulping breaths she saw Darius holding a banister, a sight that would haunt her for the rest of her nights to come because there was water on him, living, grasping, pulling water.

Alice heard his hip dislocate and with a steeled toe, she kicked through his hands and the banister. The water took him in the darkness, he went screaming and insane. She sat on the steps watching the water recede.

Flexing her foot, the weight came off of the boots and they were just his boots again and when the water left, standing empty on the floor was her favorite mug.