1 The Bank of the River Page 2

  “If there was someone here they’re gone now,” said the second cop.

  “If?” Steven asked.

  “Look,” the first cop said, “you did the right thing calling us. I’m sure you heard something. You told us you slammed the door downstairs. They probably left through the front door as soon as you alerted them to your presence.”

  “I found the front door bolted,” said Steven. “They didn’t go out that way.”

  “We’ve checked the entire house and yard. I assure you there’s no one here. My advice is to get your alarm fixed right away, and if anything else happens, call 911 again.”

  “Thanks,” Steven said, resigned. He could tell this was routine for them, and they weren’t going to make a case out of something they didn’t need to, something they felt was most likely his mistake.

  Steven made his own rounds through the house, double checking the bolts on the basement door, the kitchen door, and the front door. He checked all of the window locks, ensuring they held. He checked every closet. He even poked his head up into the attic and shined a flashlight into every corner until he was sure he was alone.

  It’s difficult to sleep in a house you believe has just been robbed or invaded. Steven knew he had heard footsteps overhead when he slammed the basement door. Could the footsteps have been some kind of echo? If someone had been upstairs, where did they go? If this ended with the same explanation as the knocking – no explanation – it was going to drive him crazy.

  It’s likely I’m not thinking straight about this, he thought. Better sleep and see how things look in the morning. Daylight will bring a fresh perspective.

  Steven climbed into bed but sleep was not forthcoming. There were too many ideas floating around in his head, and too much adrenaline in his system. Every idea he proposed for the sound of the footsteps didn’t stick – nothing seemed like a reasonable answer. He felt as if he were going around and around, trying out the same ideas over and over, but not finding an answer each time.

  He continued running scenarios through his mind for a long time before he drifted off.

  -

  Steven awoke to the sound of knocking. He strained his ears, threw his legs out of the bed, and stumbled into the hallway, listening. He was trying to discern the direction of the follow-up knocks which were sure to come. They always did.

  Then four more knocks, just like before. From downstairs. But then, unlike previous nights, more sounds. A shuffling, like someone walking.

  He struggled with his balance as his body attempted to wake up. He walked to the top of the stairs, and looked down into the basement. The light at the foot of the stairs was dim, coming from the moonlight in an adjacent basement window. Steven strained to focus his eyes which were blurry with sleep. The house was silent now, and he strained his ears for any sound of movement, something that would tell him what was happening. For several moments he stood there like an animal, defenses up, senses strained to detect a threat. His eyes continued to adjust to the darkness, and he looked for anything in the pattern of the moonlight that might indicate to him the source of the sound. Then he saw it. It passed almost imperceptibly from left to right at the base of the stairs. They were in the house again. He considered calling 911, then dismissed it. What am I going to tell them? he thought. That I saw a shadow? I need to know what I’m dealing with.

  He felt sweat break out, and he rubbed his eyes. He focused again. No movement, but now he heard the sound of water running. It was coming from downstairs.

  He walked down slowly and quietly. He was scared, but he was also determined to find out who was inside the house. He considered turning on the stairwell light, then decided not to. This time he wouldn’t scare them away. Perhaps whoever was in the house didn’t realize he was awake, and he felt this gave him an advantage.

  At the base of the stairs he turned right and entered a hallway that led to a bathroom where the sound of water was coming from. The door to the bathroom was open, and as he approached the door he heard the sound of the faucet being twisted off. The water stopped, followed by a few drips. Steven was convinced he’d cornered them, there was no way out of the bathroom. Time to confront whatever was there.

  He stepped in and turned on the light. He could smell the slight chlorine odor of freshly run water. The shower curtain to the oversize tub was pulled back, and in the tub stood about six inches of water. He glanced around the room – no one was there. The room had no closets or corners where someone could hide. He walked over to the tub and looked down into the water, searching for some explanation, something to make sense of what he was seeing. He reached down into the tub to pull up the stopper. To his shock it was already up. The water wasn’t draining. It must be plugged for some reason, he thought. Yes, it’s plugged, that explains it, and there’s been a slow drip that I haven’t noticed, and it’s been accumulating for hours. He knew this didn’t explain the sounds he’d heard or the movement he’d seen, but this partial explanation accounted for the water, and he was willing to go with it for now.

  Determined to figure out what was blocking the drain, he leaned over the tub and dug his fingers into the holes on the sides of the stopper, searching for the blockage.

  With his face just inches from the sides of the tub, he heard it again – four knocks. This time coming from overhead, behind him. Instinctively he twisted his neck to look up, but as he did so, a large drop of liquid hit his face and it caused him to flinch. With one hand in the drain and the other trying to prop himself up, he lost his stability and fell face-first into the water, its chill jolting awake any parts of his body still asleep. He pushed himself up with his arms and lifted his head from the water, wiping his face. His hand came away bloody. Great, I’ve cut myself, he thought. Then he heard the knocking again, directly above him. The sensation that someone was in the room with him washed over him like the coldness of the water. He knew it was above him, behind him. In his mind he couldn’t rationalize how it could be above him in the tub, but he knew it was there, just as you know when someone is standing behind you even though you haven’t seen them. At first he felt too frightened to turn to face it, but he realized that for his own sanity he needed to get an answer, to see what he was dealing with. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in the blood in his ears. He turned over onto his back to see what was above him.

  Something was there, moving, but at first he couldn’t make it out. Nothing was distinct. It was as though it was forming, coming together. After a few seconds it had enough shape that Steven could see it was the head of an old man with his eyes closed. There were deep wrinkles in the face, and wisps of the man’s hair drifted above his head. It floated slowly, moving back and forth in a gentle way. Steven was stunned at the image, almost mesmerized by it. He felt like an animal being hypnotized before a kill.

  It began to move towards him. He noticed the man’s neck – it was roughly severed, ragged, dripping blood, which fell onto Steven. Trying to keep some distance from it, Steven lowered his body back towards the water in the tub as the head approached him. The image of the man kept shifting, like it was behind panes of old glass. When it was about a foot away from his face, the eyes opened, revealing sockets filled with blood that began to run down the man’s cheeks.

  Reflexes caused Steven to throw his head backwards and he hit the back of his head against the bottom of the tub. Water rushed in over his face and for a moment he felt he was drowning. He could feel his heart beating out of his chest. He reached out again to the sides of the tub, trying to grab hold, but his hands were wet and slippery with the combination of water and blood. The image was right above him now, just above the surface of the water. If he raised up, he’d hit it with his head. He felt trapped. He hadn’t managed to suck in much air before he went under, and he was feeling the need to breathe. He flailed his arms against the side of the tub, reaching for the upper edge on the left side to pull himself up. He flung his right arm over his torso to reach for the left edge, and grabbing it, pulled w
ith all of his might. He felt himself roll out and slip onto the cold tile of the bathroom floor. There was a sharp pain in his right knee when his leg crashed from the edge of the tub onto the floor. He turned his body to look at the head, to see if it was still coming at him.

  It was gone.

  He quickly inspected his body, looking for a cut or a gash. He felt the back of his head. There was no blood, not coming from him, or in the water. The water in the tub was crystal clear, just as it looked when he entered the room.

  Lying on the floor, he grabbed a towel and wiped it over his face. He was breathing hard and his body was shaking from the cold water. He closed his eyes, rolled onto his back, and tried to take several deep breaths. He could hear the water draining from the tub, as though he had just finished a bath. He felt his heartbeat slowly return to a normal rhythm, and he felt the need to get up and dry off. But he was terrified to open his eyes while looking up. He rolled onto his side, knelt, and stood up, then opened them. The room looked normal, no water in the tub, and everything in its place, except his ability to make sense of what had just happened.

  Chapter Four

  Steven waited in the small office for the doctor to come back. Thank god for COBRA, he thought. After the event last night, Steven had stayed up trying to understand it. The only rational explanation was a brain tumor or some disorder that was causing him to hallucinate. The knocking, the footsteps, and now the incident in the bathtub – they all had to be hallucinations. He had just listened, hours before, to Debra’s story of how Ben had committed suicide. It wasn’t a big leap to think his brain, if it was sick, had taken that story and ran with it. And consistent with a brain tumor, the hallucinations were getting worse. This explanation made sense and it was almost a relief. If having a brain tumor can be considered a relief, he thought.

  The doctor came into the room and shut the door behind him. “Listen Steven, the neurological tests are all negative. I can’t say I see anything that would indicate a tumor. We could do an MRI but I’m not sure that would help.” He tapped his pen on the folder he held. “Describe the hallucinations to me again.”

  Steven recounted the knocking and footsteps. When he described the head, he left out most of the gory details. He didn’t want the doctor to think he was completely batshit. A floating, disembodied head was good enough for diagnosis. He didn’t want to wind up in an asylum for christsake.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty severe,” the doctor said.

  “I know how crazy it sounds, but that’s why I’m here. Something like a tumor is an explanation that makes sense. I’m sane enough to know there’s a rational explanation.”

  The doctor kept flipping through the paperwork. “Do you take any drugs?”

  “Only the ones you’ve prescribed for me,” Steven replied.

  “Just the Lozol, nothing else?”

  “I’m not a drug abuser, if that’s where you’re headed.”

  “No, I’m just looking for combinations that might result in something like this,” the doctor replied.

  “No. Nothing other than the Lozol.”

  “Anything for pain?”

  “Ibuprofen, aspirin. Rarely.”

  “How are you sleeping?”

  “Not well. I never wake up feeling good.”

  “I notice you didn’t put down any next of kin. Are all of your family passed away?”

  “No, I should have put my father, but he doesn’t like me to list him for anything without him knowing about it in advance. He’s a little particular that way.”

  “Well, why don’t you arrange that with him and call my staff back with the contact info. I have to have some kind of next of kin listed for DNR and that kind of thing. Do you know of any health conditions your father or mother have had? Anything like this?”

  “My mother passed away after dementia years ago, but that was just caused by old age, right? She was seventy two. Nothing in my father’s history that I know of. Or their parents. But people of their generation were very secretive about anything, you know, mental, so one of them might have had issues and just never told anyone.”

  The doctor paused. “When did you say the hallucinations first started?”

  “About two months ago. Very minor back then, nothing like last night.”

  “What happened in your life two months ago?”

  “Well, I moved into a new house. And I was let go.”

  The doctor flipped the folder closed. “Those are two of the biggest stressors people have in their lives. Only divorce and death in the family rank higher. You’ve had two big ones within a few weeks of each other. It’s most likely that stress is the cause.”

  “Really?” This seemed too simple, but then, the doctor was the expert. And it was an explanation.

  “Yes, trust me. I’ll prescribe a sedative for you. You said you’ve had difficulty sleeping, that’s probably compounding it. Lack of sleep can lead to all kinds of strange things. I want you to find ways to reduce stress, get plenty of rest, and take this sedative just before bedtime each night for the next two weeks. Schedule an appointment with me two weeks out and we’ll see how things stand. If things have improved, great. If not, we’ll see about an MRI.” The doctor handed Steven the prescription, and before he could ask another question, opened the door, and was off to the next patient in the room next door.

  -

  “You look like hell!”

  Steven stared back at the old man in the doorway. “You too,” he replied.

  The old man’s lips cracked into a smile. “Come on in.”

  Steven entered the house he grew up in. Familiar pictures hung on the walls, and forty year old furniture graced the living room. It had a particular smell, too. It made him feel three feet tall. Roy, his father, motioned for him to sit. The chair used to be covered in plastic, back when his mother was alive. Roy had removed the plastic after she died.

  “What’s up?”

  “Listen, I was at the doctor’s today, and they insist on having a next of kin listing. I don’t want to list Jason, and god knows I’m not going to give them Sheryl’s name. So it has to be you.”

  His dad got up, agitated. “What about Bernie? He’d do it.”

  “He lives in San Antonio. You’re right here.”

  “I don’t like being on lists.”

  “I know,” Steven said. His dad’s stubbornness on this issue really got under his skin, especially since it was in the interest of Steven’s health. Most fathers would have said “sure” without a second thought. Not Roy.

  “This is a private medical listing, they’d only call you if there was some medical emergency involving me. They can’t disclose your name or contact info without getting sued. Medical records are very private.”

  “Private my ass. If they’re so private, why’s my Medicare premium so high?” he yelled back from the kitchen.

  Steven sighed. “They’re high for everyone. Medical costs have been skyrocketing the last thirty years, ever since Nixon and HMOs.”

  “Don’t you bring up Nixon.”

  He could have and he normally would have continued discussing medical costs, but Steven retreated, knowing he was going down the wrong path. It was easy to get sidetracked when talking with Roy; it was a pattern they had engaged in for years. They both had the ability to bait each other into discussions neither really wanted to have and that always ended badly. He needed to get back to the point.

  “Look, I need this favor, so please do it for me, OK? I guarantee you won’t be bothered unless something serious happens to me. If it does, I’d rather you make decisions for me, not Jason, not Bernie. OK? By the way, who do you have listed with your doctors as next of kin now that Mom’s gone?”

  Roy ignored the question and returned from the kitchen with a beer in hand. “I won’t do it unless you tell me what’s going on.”

  “What do you mean?” Steven asked.

  “Something’s going on. You look like hell, you’ve gone to the doctor about it, and you look
as worried as a Catholic on his way to confession. Out with it.”

  Steven sighed. Whenever Roy wanted some information, it was easier to give it to him than to resist. “I may have a brain tumor.”

  “You don’t have a brain tumor,” Roy said.

  “Thanks for your sympathy, Dad.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I’ve been seeing and hearing things. Things that aren’t there.”

  “What did the doctor say about it?”

  “He ran some neurological tests, all negative. He says it’s stress.”

  “Damn doctors wouldn’t know their asshole from a hole in the ground.”

  “It makes sense,” Steven replied. “Moving to the new house, losing my job.”

  “What kinda things?” Roy asked.

  “What?”

  “What kind of things have you been seeing, that aren’t there?”

  “Well, it started with knockings,” Steven answered. “I would wake up at night, convinced I’d heard someone knocking. It’s been happening since I moved into the new house. It happens every night.”

  “Plumbing?” asked Roy.

  “Replaced it all with PEX. It isn’t the plumbing,” Steven replied.

  “Neighbor kids?”

  “I set up a webcam to monitor the yard – nothing.”

  “What’s a webcam?”

  “Surveillance. A video camera that’s triggered when there’s motion. A cat came by, but that was it. It’s not kids.”

  “You think it’s something supernatural,” Roy said, looking at Steven.

  “No, of course not. It’s a brain tumor.”

  “You do, and you don’t want to admit it. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Steven sighed. “Last night I had a severe hallucination. Saw the head of a man, the man who killed himself in my house fifteen years ago. It scared the hell out of me. That’s why I went to the doctor.”

  Roy sat his beer down, and gave him a look Steven remembered from his youth that meant how stupid are you?