Benny was still trembling from the sudden appearance of the car from out of the blinding snow just as he was starting across the bridge. One second, the car hadn’t been there . . . the next, it was practically on top of him.
His hands were clenched into tight fists as he cautiously approached the ragged gap in the bridge railing and looked down at the roof of the car, floating in the river. All around the car, thick, black water bubbled up like stew in a cauldron. The crackle and snap of hot metal being instantly cooled filled the night. Benny hunched up his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath as he watched the car sink out of sight.
“Fuckin’-a!” he muttered as he leaned forward, looking down, and vigorously rubbed his arms.
He knew he should be brave about this. He should strip off his coat and dive right into that freezing water—swim down there and try to save the poor bastard in that car. He probably hadn’t drowned yet, and every second he delayed increased the odds that he wouldn’t make it.
“Jesus Christ!” Benny whispered as he contemplated how deathly cold that water would be. “No fucking way!”
If the poor bastard wasn’t dead yet, Benny knew he soon would be. If he jumped into that water now, all he’d accomplish would be his own death. No sense ending up a dead hero, that’s for sure. As he watched the black water settle down, he convinced himself that whoever had been driving that car had probably been drunk and should have known better than to try to drive in a blizzard like this in the first place. But whatever he had been, he was
dead
drunk now! Benny smiled at his own sick humor.
Turning quickly away from the railing, he snuggled deeper into his coat and started walking again. He was up from Connecticut to visit his sister, so he wasn’t entirely familiar with these roads, but he guessed it was no more than a mile or two back to the Turnpike. Of course, walking in a storm like this made every hundred yards feel like a mile. If nothing else, he figured he should find a phone booth and call his sister, Gail, and let her know that his car had broken down, and that he wasn’t going to be able to surprise her for her birthday as he had hoped.
On and on, Benny trudged through the raging storm, convinced that at the next bend in the road, just over the next snow-swept hill, he’d see the distant glow of the gas station lights. After walking much further than he thought he would have to, he saw the dark girders of another bridge up ahead. As he drew nearer, he frowned, unable to recall crossing two bridges on his way out. He wondered if he had taken a wrong turn somewhere back on the road.
What if he was lost?
Cursing softly under his breath, he started across the second bridge, being careful to keep well to the side in case a snow plow came by. He had to fight the eerie feeling that this was the same bridge he had crossed earlier—what? Maybe thirty minutes ago? The same bridge some crazy-ass, drunk driver had careened off.
He jerked to a stop when, through the curtain of snow, he saw up ahead the large, gaping hole in the twisted metal railing.
Without warning, two glaring yellow headlights suddenly blossomed out of the night. Benny’s throat vibrated with a wild scream as the car slammed into him, and he bounced high into the air. As he ricocheted off the car’s windshield, one of his last thoughts was that he felt like a springtime bug, ricocheting off the car as he flew through the air.
Distantly, he felt his legs bang against the railing, knocking it clear of snow, but he missed in his desperate grab to catch onto something to stop his fall. With his arms waving wildly above his head, and a shrill scream muffled by the stormy night, he plunged down . . . down and through the thin river ice and then sank slowly to the thick, black mud below.
-1-
“M
y bedroom door has eyes in it,” Sarah said.
Her breath rebounded warmly into her face from the telephone mouthpiece, but that didn’t stop the shiver that ran up her back.
“Yeah—I’m sure,” Tom replied at the other end of the line. He was finding it difficult to keep the snicker out of his voice. “And I suppose the walls have ears, too. Better be careful! They can hear everything we’re saying!”
A flash of anger, hot and red, made Sarah’s vision go unfocused for an instant, but then a voice whispered in the back of her mind . . .
—If you can’t trust Tom, who can you trust?
“No, Tom, I’m serious!” she said, without trying to mask the whining sound in her voice. “I can see . . . eyes! In the wood!”
Tom cleared his throat before speaking.
“Look, uhh, Sarah—I’ve been bustin’ my ass studying for this chemistry prelim, and if I—”
“They’re right there . . . on my closet door,” Sarah whispered. “Right in the middle—near the top.”
Tom let out an exasperated sigh.
“In case you don’t remember, I’ve had the pleasure of spending a night or two in your bedroom, and I don’t remember any. . . . Well, let’s just say that I had more interesting things to look at than your closet door, all right? I thought you had a poster or something on it, anyway.”
“Are you going to help me or not?” Sarah said, her voice cracking as it slid up the scale.
“Help you what? You’re getting yourself all worked up about . . . about nothing! You’ve got some cheap wood door that’s full of knots. That’s all it is, you know? You’re just . . . creating some kind of illusion from the grain in the wood or something.”
“I want you to come over! Right now!”
Karen heard Tom sigh again, heavily. While she waited for him to answer, she glanced out the bedroom window. Snow had been falling steadily for the past four hours. Her view of the streetlight on the corner of College Ave. and Main Street was blurred by the thick flakes. The eerie nimbus of blue light hung suspended in the night like an exploded star.
“Do you—ah, realize how bad the driving is right now?” Tom asked. His voice betrayed his concern that Sarah might have been drinking too much or maybe had taken some kind of drug that was flipping her out.
“I don’t care how late it is!” Sarah wailed. “Do you realize how scared I am?”
“So just put something over it so you won’t have to look at it,” Tom said coolly. “After my test tomorrow morning, I’ll swing by and take a—”
“Haven’t you been listening to me? I can see
eyes
—someone’s
eyes
. I—I tried to cover them up, but I don’t dare to get near them. And don’t tell me to turn off the light. Even with it off, I can see them. They just kinda float there in the dark. Oh, God, Tom, I’m really scared!”
“Well, then . . . I dunno.”
Tom heaved another deep sigh.
“Can’t you just leave your bedroom? Sleep on the couch or something?”
He knew better than to suggest that she sleep on her roommate Karen’s bed.
“Yeah, but—” Sarah’s voice cracked, and when she continued, her voice was even higher, tighter, bordering on hysteria now. “I—I’m starting to see eyes everywhere I look! And just now, I . . . thought I saw a
face
, grinning at me from the door.”
“Are you on anything?” Tom said.
After a long, awkward silence, Sarah replied, but she didn’t sound at all like herself when she did; her voice was high and warbling, like a little girl’s.
“No, I’m not on anything! Are you going to come over or not?”
“Do you know what’ll happen to me if I flunk this chemistry exam tomorrow?” Tom asked sharply. “Even my father’s pull won’t keep me in school after that! The roads are probably slick as shit, too, and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s after one o’clock in the morning. I have—Fuck! Less than eight hours to study for this test.
“And
I
can’t stop seeing those eyes!”
“Look, Sarah,” Tom said, lowering his voice and fighting to keep it steady. “I mean—after what happened to Karen a couple of weeks ago, I can understand if you’re still a little bit nervous. I’m still pretty freaked out by the whole thing, too, you know.”
“
Nervous?
” Sarah shouted. “Is that what you think it is? I’m
nervous?
”
“Well . . . what else do you think it might be? You’re probably just letting your imagination get carried away.”
Tom regretted saying it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. In fact, he regretted this entire phone call. He wasn’t even close to prepared for the chemistry test in the morning, and now, with his last minute cram session interrupted, there was no way he was going to pass the test.
“Look, umm, Sarah—I’m sorry I said that, okay?” He tried to keep his voice as calm and restrained as possible. “The doctor gave you something—right? Some tranquilizers to help you calm down.”
Sarah merely grunted a reply.
“So why don’t you just take one of them, and tomorrow morning, right after the test, I’ll—”
“I already took some,” Sarah said in a voice that sounded tired and strained. “I’ve got every light in the apartment on, and I can
still
see them! Everywhere I look, there are eyes! Right there in the middle of my closet door, on my bedroom door!
Everywhere!
And they’re all looking right at me!”
A cold hollow pit opened up in the middle of Tom’s stomach. He hadn’t missed Sarah’s use of the word some. She hadn’t said, she took
one
already. She had said she had taken
some
already!
Oh, Christ! Oh, shit!
he thought as the chill spread throughout his body, making his shoulders shake.
Especially after what happened to Karen. . . .
“You know you’re just imagining all of this, don’t you?” he said, trying one last time to bring Sarah back to a rational level. He looked down at his right hand, surprised to see that he was gripping his car keys. He couldn’t believe that he was actually contemplating going out on a night like this. Hell! Just because they had slept together once or twice, it wasn’t like they were lovers or anything.
“I’m
not
imagining this!” Sarah wailed.
Her voice blended into shrill laughter that cut through Tom like a buzz saw.
“I’m not imagining
any
of it! I’m sitting here on my bed, looking straight at my closet door, and I can see someone’s eyes staring back at me.” She took a sharp, rasping breath. “And do you want to know what?”
Tom licked his lips and, against his will, said, “Yeah . . . what?”
“They look
exactly
like Karen’s eyes!”
-2-
T
he snow stung the back of Tom’s neck as he stood outside the door of Sarah’s apartment building. His forefinger was numb from pressing the door buzzer so many times, but above the whistling shriek of the blizzard, he couldn’t even tell if the buzzer was working. Finally, out of desperation, he started pounding on the metal door.
“Hey, Sarah! Open up! It’s me! Tom!”
His voice sounded frail, almost non-existent against the howl of the storm. Each hammer-fisted blow on the door rumbled like a bass drum.
Tom couldn’t push aside his rising panic when Sarah still didn’t come to the door. Fear and worry, more chilling than any Maine Nor’easter, churned in his gut as he stared in frustration at the darkened door.
Was she asleep, completely oblivious to him knocking on the door?
Or, as much as he tried to push such thoughts aside, had something happened?
Could she have been so upset that she could have done something like what Karen had done?
“Please, God, no!” he whispered as he leaned his face close to the cold door, fighting to push back his rising panic. “
Sarah!
” he screamed suddenly as he gripped the doorknob and gave it a violent shake. “
Come on, Sarah! Open the goddamned door!
”
When this produced no result, he backed away from the door, wondering what the hell to do next. His shoulders and hands ached from his efforts, and his breathing came in sharp, burning gulps.
Was Sarah playing some cruel practical joke on him? he wondered.
Maybe even now, she was crouching by one of her darkened windows, looking out at him, and snickering behind her hand.
Or had she . . . had she done what her roommate, Karen, had done?
Behind him, the storm swept the length of the street, hissing as it smoothed over the plow ridge he had smashed through to get his car into the apartment parking lot. He could see his car was already skimmed with an inch or more fresh snow that crackled as it melted and then turned to ice on his heated windshield. The snow-hooded headlights had a sad, almost frowning look as they peered at him over the ridge of snow.
For several minutes, Tom just stood there, shivering and wondering what the hell to do. The frigid night air burned into his lungs and made his eyes sting.
Maybe he should try to break into the apartment. He certainly couldn’t break through the door, but he might be able to jimmy open a window. He scanned the side of the building, feeling his fear and frustration growing steadily.
Or maybe he should roust the apartment complex manager out of bed. So what if it was two o’clock in the morning. If anything had happened to Sarah. . . .