They sat for a long moment, staring at each other. “We need to go back. To the Miller house,” Eliza finally said, breaking the silence.
Mallory frowned, glancing at the window, and then at the clock. Despite everything that had happened today, it was still before 5 pm – it would be light out for another four hours or so. A part of Mallory wanted to protest this idea, but seeing something in Eliza’s expression – a sort of hardheaded steadfastness – made her nod in agreement instead. Before long, they were both piled back into her car, making the drive out to the dilapidated building.
Once inside, they stood together at the edge of the ruined stairs, shining their flashlights down into the basement. From above, it was clear how bad it should have been. How strange it really was. “I don’t think we would’ve survived that,” Eliza said, her tone strangely flat.
Mallory nodded.
Back outside, they walked slowly to the car, each contemplating what they had seen. “Where we were standing,” Eliza began tentatively, “it looked like we were protected somehow. Like we were in a bubble that just dissolved all the wood.”
Mallory nodded. In a rough circle around the area they had been standing, there was no debris. It wasn’t even that it had fallen around them, miraculously missing them. There had been long pieces of wood that should have fallen onto them, but the edges had been sheered off at the middle where they had been standing, almost like a smooth cut. The central area, the bubble of protection, was covered in bright fresh sawdust. Mallory recalled how it swirled in the air, caught in the flashlight’s beam. She had thought it was only dust in the air.
What had destroyed the wood like that?
As she mulled that thought over, a sudden chill ran down her spine. She had the sudden sensation of being watched. She glanced around, and found herself focusing on the roof of the Miller house, squinting against the fading late afternoon light. There was nothing there, and yet… there was something there. Something watching. “Let’s go,” she said to Eliza, walking quickly back to her car.
Eliza followed, frowning. Mallory immediately started her car, and as soon as Eliza’s door was closed, she sped down the dirt lane. Eliza frowned at her, picking up on her agitation. “Mallory, what’s wrong?” she asked quietly as she buckled her seatbelt.
Mallory shook her head, not quite wanting to give voice to her concern yet.
“Did you see what was watching us?” Eliza’s voice was almost too soft to hear. Mallory stared straight ahead as she drove.
It wasn’t until much later, when they were back at Eliza’s house. They were safe in Eliza’s room, seated on the bed. Mallory described the strange figure she had seen at the top of the stairs. The sensation of being watched.
Instead of seeming incredibly freaked out, Eliza breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes and reaching out to place her hand gently on Mallory’s arm. “I stopped bringing it up because it sounded crazy, and I thought I was being silly. But I felt it there too. It’s the same as what I had told you about before. About how I felt like I’d been watched all summer.”
“It’s not exactly relieving to me that you’re not crazy about being stalked,” Mallory groused.
Eliza smiled, opening her eyes again. “I’m not happy about that. I’m just glad I’m not crazy after all.”
mehryment 