Surprise

“I should definitely not be doing this alone.” Sara thought as she slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed behind her. “Whatever I need to get out of the house.” She had been working remotely for a little over a year now with little to no human interaction outside of her husband Ryan. Sara is a text-book introvert: outgoing and personable but requiring 72 hours alone for every one hour spent with other humans. Even still, some days she swore those four walls inched closer together every time she looked up from her computer screen.

She had heard about this app on the news, albeit for negative reasons, but not everyone can have a bad experience, right?

“Okay, so I’m supposed to think of something, an abstract idea or something, and the app is supposed to give me coordinates to where I’ll find it.”

She opened the app.

“Should I tell someone what I’m doing? Nah, fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen?” The app is for teenagers so it’s a little embarrassing to admit that a thirty-something is interested in it too.

“Okay I need to set my radius. 4 miles won’t get me far. Let’s do 10. Now…..what do I hope to find?”

Being isolated for so long must have had the opposite effect on Sara’s creativity than it seems to have had on the rest of the world. The only word she could think of is “Surprise!”

Point generated.

Start Journey.

She plugs in her phone and opens Spotify. No new episode of Abe Lincoln’s Top Hat yet. *Sigh* Guess it’s Miley Cyrus again. Loving Miley’s newest album is something Sara feels she probably shouldn’t talk about, but it’s just really fucking good.

She pulls out of her driveway and embarks on her journey to “find the magic in the world around her” or whatever the app’s tag line said.

She and Miley drove down the highway not thinking of much other than how nice the late summer sun felt on her face. She wondered if other people also fantasize about just driving away from their lives, never to return. It’s something she thinks about more often than she would admit. “I could just stay on this highway and see where I land when I run out of gas.” Now that’d be a surprise. Starting a new life somewhere else would be just as boring right now though, she supposed. The pandemic had rendered the world hollow and colorless with no end in sight. One of those seasons of waiting people talk about, except this time it’s the whole world holding its breath at once. Sara wonders how many other marriages are falling apart right now. It’s somewhat comforting to assuredly be part of some future statistic. It’s not that she didn’t love Ryan any more, she did, probably too much. Their relationship had always been a bit nuclear. Dangerously hot one moment and destabilizingly cold the next. She knew this from the start but was so inexplicably drawn to him that she couldn’t stay away.

“Your destination is a half mile ahead on the right.”

“The Super 8 motel? What the hell kind of surprise is this?” She pulled in the parking lot and took a closer look at the map. As magical a place as the Super 8 might be, the destination was down a hiking trail carved out behind the motel. “Won’t it be just great when the local yokels report back to Ryan seeing my car at the Super 8 in the middle of town.” Guess it doesn’t matter now.

Sara shifts her car into park while simultaneously pressing her left foot down on the emergency brake. She knows this isn’t always necessary but she also always thinks about how embarrassing it would be to be run over by your own Prius. CAUSE OF DEATH: Complications from wearing ass as hat.

She opens the drivers side door and is enveloped by the thick August air. She checks the map again.

“Down the trail about half a mile.” Hm. She looks around. This is a public trail that connects with the community park, but it is awfully secluded. Oh well, it’s the middle of the day, it’s fine. She starts down the hill, soles crunching in the dry gravel. Sara would like to enjoy the outdoors more than she does, but she tends to prefer music and books and air conditioning to sweating and mosquito bites.

She looks behind her to be sure no one has joined her on her quest. The Super 8 is getting smaller and smaller and she is getting more and more alone. She pictures a dark figure darting across the trail behind her the moment she turns her gaze ahead. Too many horror movies.

Just as she is having this thought an unfamiliar sound in a nearby tree stops her in her tracks. She looks up to lock eyes with the largest owl she’s ever seen. Actually, the only owl she’s ever seen in the wild. It was holding her gaze unnaturally. The word “owl” was being pushed into her mind. As if she were thinking it but they weren’t her own thoughts. The gaze was mesmerizing and hard to break. She felt violated and broke the exchange by continuing down her path.

“Well that was fuckin’ weird” she thought as she checked the app again while uncomfortably continuing down her magical journey to whatever surprise awaited her. Shouldn’t be much longer.

Sara got to the destination where the app promised that by some mixture of intuition and quantum thought she’d be met with whatever she intended to meet. She rechecked the app to make sure she stopped in the right spot. She looked around – nothing on the trail – nothing in the leaves immediately to the side of the trail. Wait – there is something sticking partially out of the leaves a few yards in.

She hesitated, looking around once more to be sure she was still alone. She carefully stepped into the soft bed of leaves and crept through the space between herself and her surprise.

It’s a black duffle bag, partially unzipped but not enough to view its contents. She carefully pulled the zipper open. “Cash?” A lot of cash; stacks still wrapped in bank paper. “Why would someone leave this out here?” Her mind wandered back to those stories she’d heard about drug cartels making drops in random locations. People get killed for finding this stuff. The creak of distressed wood made her jolt up, straight backed and wide-eyed. Her blood ran cold from her chest to her kneecaps as she was pierced by the gaze of a terrifying, cloudy blue eye. A horrible vulture-like eye, not seeing her, yet penetrating her to her very soul. She let out a disgusted guffaw while raising the back of her hand to her mouth. She looked down at the browned foliage, the corpses of springtimes past. She breathed heavily, trying to catch the breath she had been holding involuntarily. The eye was at such a height that she knew exactly who it belonged to, but needed to confirm it. She warily peered back up in the direction of her audience. Confirmed – there is a rope. She looked back down quickly, focusing on pushing the air out of her lungs and pulling it back in.

Sara stumbled back out onto the trail, pale and cold, feeling as if she would be sick. She took a few hurried steps before realizing she was clutching the duffle bag Heisman-style between her right bicep and chest. There was no fucking way she was going back there. That eye. She stumbled to her right and muffled a scream as the sound of wings encased her from the left. That fucking owl. What the fuck. She watched as it made a judgmental swoop before her and out into the field. She was jogging now; visibly upset. She made it back to the car, threw the bag in the passenger’s seat, slammed and locked the door behind her. Still trying to catch her breath she started the car and pulled back onto the highway before she could even process what she had just seen.

Sitting forward in her seat and gripping the steering wheel with both hands she was not seeing the road ahead of her, only that hazy blue eye. She let out a tearless sob but quickly stifled it. If she started now, she wouldn’t stop.

Sara pulled into the next gas station and parked. She needed to collect herself before going home. She took a few deep breaths then looked at the bag beside her. She hadn’t fully closed the zipper in her flight so the money was still visible. But now she could see the corner of what looked like a small notebook. She let out a sigh, and reached in, gripping the corner with only her thumb and index finger. She pulled it out in the same manner you’d retrieve a dead mouse caught in a trap. It was a small, black, leather-bound notebook much like the one Ryan carries in his pocket to jot down measurements and calculations for his job. It was clean, looked brand new in fact, so she took it in her left palm and opened the cover. On the first page was scrawled a simple, but haunting message.

“Jill, Amy, I’m sorry. This is all I have left to give.”

The lour blue eye belonged to a man at the end of his rope – literally and figuratively. Sara let out another small sob, not from trauma as the one before, but of empathy. She knew too well the feelings that lead someone to this destination.

“Ohhh no.” She said out of grief. She looked at the clock on her dash. There wasn’t much time left before Ryan would expect to find her home after work. Before her mind could wander back to the eye, to the man, to the family, she shut off her thoughts and drove home in numb silence.

She decided to stow the duffle bag for now and try and forget this adventure ever happened. The closet in the room she shared with Ryan had some loose boards she could lift and hide the bag and its contents underneath. The current occupants consisted of only a few small things she liked to keep for herself – mostly some sex toys and a little bag of weed. Ryan never messed with her stuff so he would never find it.

Sara was in the shower when Ryan got home. A little more time for her to get prepared to act like nothing unusual happened to her today. She heard him come in but he didn’t come into the bathroom to greet her. Cold today. Good, that will make things easier.

After she was showered and dressed, Sara went into the living room where Ryan was seated. When she entered he didn’t even look up.

“Hey babe” she said. Nothing. “How was your day?”

“It was a day” he said. Normally this type of response would annoy her, but today she was relieved not to have to force the small talk. They sat in silence watching the evening news. Why is it called the “news” anyway? It’s rarely new. And rarely good.

Sara had originally planned to report her surprise to the local authorities, of course, why wouldn’t she? But as days went by she decided she didn’t want to get involved. She was careful and felt reasonably assured that nobody saw her acting strange in the Super 8 parking lot. Even if they had, she wasn’t acting any stranger than the meth heads or illegals staying there – and they sure as shit weren’t going to call the local authorities. This twenty grand will help pay for her divorce anyway.

A few days after her magical discovery, Sara started having sleep paralysis again. Waking up unable to move for speak but fully aware of her surroundings. Except this time every instance was the same – darkness and silence save for the faint sound of the flapping of bird’s wings. Each time the paralysis broke, she’d sit straight up gasping for air with her only thoughts being on that horrible blue eye.

“Hey did you hear about that body they found over near the community park today?” Ryan asked one evening. Sara’s body stiffened. Be cool, hunny bunny, be cool.

“No. What?” she asked.

Ryan pulled his head back and grinned in a way that showed he was surprised and a little confused by her response. Sara is usually very interested in things like this but today she seemed…almost…offended? “Yeah, uh, they found a dude hanging in the woods near that trail. Suicide they’re assuming. He had a family – wife and kid. Something about financial trouble they said.”

Sara’s blood went cold again. The eye. The note. “This is all I have left to give.” Shit.

“Oh shit.” She said after a few seconds of awkward silence. Ryan made that weird face again but thankfully left it at that. Sara waited until after Ryan went to bed to pull up the news story on her laptop. Interview with the wife. They had nothing left, not even enough to pay for a funeral. Sara scrubbed her face with her hands and blew out a sigh through pursed lips. Can’t get involved now.

That night the flapping got louder. She woke up swinging her arms wildly, drenched in sweat. “What the fuck?” Ryan asked, more annoyed than concerned.

“Sorry, I, uh…I don’t know.” Sara said fanning her shirt and looking down at her lap. Ryan had rolled over, not concerned with an explanation.

Night after night, the flapping, the eye, louder and closer.

One night Ryan had fallen asleep on the couch but awoke to the sound of methodical banging on the walls. He followed the sound to the bedroom he shared with Sara and found her tearing at the drywall with the claw end of a hammer. She had pulled up all of the floor boards in their closet too. The room, and Sara, were in total disarray. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked.

“I keep hearing flapping. I can’t sleep. The flapping. There has to be a bird or something stuck between the walls. I have to get it out. I can’t take it any longer.” She said with tattered breath through gritted teeth. Ryan approached Sara cautiously and carefully removed the hammer from her grip. She started clawing at the drywall with her fingers instead, slowing sinking to the floor and sobbing. The flapping. That fucking eye.

Months later, Sara was sleeping much more peacefully at night. She and Ryan had separated, a little more suddenly than she had anticipated, but without much bickering. She gets a little lonely some days, but everyone assures her this is for the best. Three meals a day. TV time and art class. Chapel and therapy sessions a few times a week. These four walls are closer together than any she’d seen before, but at least the bars on the window keep the birds away.