Bank Owned (3 page)

5.

“I told you it had to be shipped yesterday, Larry. The vendors are on board, the marketers are up to speed, but we’re all waiting for you. What’s wrong with this picture?”

Brian leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk, massaging his scalp under the headset. Hated those headsets. Always rubbed his ear into a piece of raw cauliflower.

“Larry? You there, buddy?”

He hadn’t noticed until that second, but the Skype screen had frozen, a blurry still of his zipper supplier’s vacant stare plastered in the frame. That’s when he discovered, for at least the fifteenth time, his internet connection had failed.

“Dammit!”

He unplugged the modem, waited, then plugged it back in. That seemed to work before. Then he clicked on the browser. Success. Back online. He hurried to get Larry again, then he’d make plenty sure that shipment of zippers got out, pronto. When he clicked on Larry’s Skype ID, though, he got an onscreen message:

Gone to lunch. Talk later.

“DAMMIT!” he punched the desk and the cat scurried out the door. That’s when he decided to take a break.

In all the excitement, he’d forgotten the house came with ten acres. Mostly wooded land. He even had a miniature apple orchard, which, once out there, he discovered was bigger than first estimated. The cat followed him, stopping at irregular intervals and aiming her ears in various directions, her radar on high alert for field mice, no doubt.

As Brian approached the center of the quaint little grove, he saw something swing in an unnatural way. The entire time he’d been out there, he thought the brownish gray protuberance was a tree stump, dead and leaning amongst the healthy ones. Then it moved, and two deep black eyes fixed on him. His pulse fluttered, then he took one giant breath of relief. A deer. A buck, to be precise. A young male with two stout, forked antlers.

“Hi, guy,” Brian said. The deer moved not a muscle. Then it lifted its back leg, scratched below the ear, and, when that was finished, strained its neck into the lower branches of the tree, reaching for a sweet reward. “You want an apple?” he saw a few ripe ones which were higher than the deer could reach, so he shook a branch, and one fell right next to his foot. He plucked it off the ground and held it at arm’s length. “Here ya’ go,” he bent a little and used a sweet tone. “Here, fella.”

The buck sniffed the air, his shiny black nose twitching at the succulent scent. One step, then another, and after a third, it had halved the distance between them, and looked like it wouldn’t stop.

“Good boy,” Brian smiled, amazed at his luck. A beautiful and wild animal getting this close, eating right out of his hand. What a wonderful inaugural experience to his property, almost as if nature was greeting him with a warm embrace.

The deer slowed as it approached, and began to sniff again, separating its lips and showing its flat front teeth. Brian waved the apple, thinking the smell would stir the animal into losing its apprehension. It worked too well. After almost halting altogether, the deer inhaled hard once, ejected a puff of breath from its nostrils, and charged. It moved too fast for Brian to react. Two gallops and it was right on top of him, and, with a keen swipe of its hoof, kicked the apple from his hand. His fingers stung as the deer rose up on its haunches and towered over him, thrashing its forelegs, missing by inches.
Whish! Whish! Whish!
went the sharp hooves, brushing past his nose.

He had no command over his legs, and only had time to put up his arms and shield himself from the sudden and vicious attack. The deer huffed and grunted. It high-stepped again and again, aiming its hooves right at his throat. One wild fling caught him on the arm, and he felt the bone bruise instantly. It sent him right on his ass in the hard earth. The jolt got his legs working again, and he managed to spin to his hands and knees and crawl like a dog up the small slope to the yard behind his house. He glanced behind him, and saw the deer’s ass end, tail standing straight, bounding through the brush in three high hops. Then it was gone.

His elbow stung, and he had to flex his fingers over and over to get the feeling back in his hand. That did it. He was getting a rifle and a deer tag.

6.

“So, since we’re living out of boxes, we might as well eat out of boxes, is that it?” Brian cast a look of disdain at the plastic tray before him. Angie felt his pain.

“I know,” she said. “But I don’t feel like cooking. And you know how I feel about unpacking.”

He sighed and stirred the watery mashed potatoes. “If I unpack the waffle iron and the Bisquick, will you make me a nice batch? ‘Cause this ain’t doin’ it for me.”

She felt a twinge at the base of her neck, the proverbial pain brought on only the way a husband knew how. “You
do
know I drive three hours a day, on top of the eight, sometimes nine or ten I spend working? You know that, right?”

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted this place.”

“You’re right. And I still do. I’m just saying…I’ll unpack when I feel like unpacking. Besides, you’re here all the time. You can do something you know?”

“Hey, I work. A lot, if you haven’t noticed.”

The slight twinge of pain turned into a roasting fire. “Are you trying to say I don’t work hard? Because you know I do. I just took some time off for the move.”

“I know, I know,” he saw right away he’d poked at a hornet’s nest, and backed off before he got stung. “I’m sorry. Listen, let’s talk about something else. Hey, here’s a weird story from the ‘when animals attack,’ file.”

“What do you mean?” she listened to his deer tale, and the more he went on about an attack in the woods, the more worried she became for him, until, by the end of his story, she was checking him for wounds, digging under his sweatshirt and forcing her arms around his waist, butt, back, shoulders.

“I’m fine, really,” he chuckled. “Though I can’t say I’m hating this.”

Her search for injury turned to a saucy massage. She felt good. Happy he was okay, but still worried. “How could a deer do that? I mean, why?” she kept kneading his chest.

“Honestly, I don’t know. That kind of thing happens, I guess. It’s rare, but it happens. Especially in rutting season.”

“Rutting season?” she giggled, and stopped rubbing. “You mean it wanted to have sex with you?”

“Ha, ha. No, it probably saw me as some sort of competitor. It thought I wanted to have sex with his girls,” they shared a good moment of levity, leaning on each other. Then she stood straight and said, “I have a weird story, too.”

“Yeah? What is it?” he flattened the sweatshirt she’d wrinkled, and proceeded to hear about her morning, the meeting with the coffee lady and how she’d mentioned the house, only to be thwarted, suddenly and forcefully, by Mister Coffee Lady. At the end, he’d become just as scared for her as she’d been for him.

“Honey, I don’t think you should be going to that coffee stand anymore.”

“What?” she was incredulous. “Why?”

“They sound like kooks. I mean, who acts like that? The old man cuts her off like they’re afraid to tell you something about this house. Seriously, come on. Something’s wrong with those people.”

She wouldn’t get on board with his theory. “They’re fine. Just eccentric, small town old folks. I’ve met tons of people like them. They don’t mean any harm. They are who they are.”

“They’re nuts. And you should stay clear. Go to the Starbucks in North Plains.”

“North Plains is twenty minutes down the road. I need my caffeine before that.”

“Then I’ll make you coffee,” he sifted through the big box on the kitchen table. “Damn coffeemaker’s in here somewhere.”

“Brian, what’s wrong?” she forced him to stop by placing a hand on his wrist. “Why are you so nervous?”

“It’s just…” his mind spun with images. Swirling and swirling. The night before, when he swore he’d heard someone in the bedroom with Angie. Her moans of profound desire. Unfathomable depths of pleasure…and pain beyond measure.

“It’s just what?” she begged. She saw the faraway look, and shook him out of it.

“It’s nothing,” he said, but wasn’t convincing anyone. She knew better.

“No. Something’s really bothering you.”

“It’s this house—”

“What about the house?”

“Angie, can’t you feel it?” he sat at the table with her. “I mean, you said you’ve been seeing things, strange things.”

“I have,” she told the truth. “I swear I see someone. An old lady, maybe, I don’t know,” she pointed at the hall connecting the pantry to the kitchen. “She walks right there, goes by so fast I can’t see much of her. But she’s there. I know it. And you know what else? I think she’s carrying a…baby.”

“A baby?” he didn’t know what to think.

“Don’t you believe me?”

“I believe
you
believe,” he tried to be tactful, given the touchy subject matter. To his surprise, and admitted delight, she wanted to talk about it.

“I do,” she felt euphoric. “I really do. Don’t you see? It’s a sign. This house is telling me it’s okay to try and have another baby, Brian.”

“The house is telling you?”

She smiled. “The house is telling me,” her happiness faded not a twinkle as she took a bite of cold sweet and sour chicken.

7.

Brian wanted to pound on the keyboard, but he knew that might wake up Angie. Even though the master bedroom was upstairs, noise traveled in that old house like gossip in church. The internet connection wasn’t a source of frustration anymore. He’d gotten the US West guys out to fix it. His problem resided with Larry, the zipper supplier who refused to ship to Miami. Long story short, Larry was now his former zipper supplier, and finding a new zipper supplier proved more difficult than expected.

At 5AM, after two hours of scouring every lead, he contemplated giving up and just going back to bed. He could snuggle up to his wife for at least an hour, maybe get a head start on that ‘trying for a baby’ thing. The idea became too appealing, and next thing he knew, he was slipping off his sweats and climbing under the sheets, melting against Angie’s warm curves. He wanted to kiss her all over, to take his wife right then and there. His desire turned into compassion when he heard her soft, rhythmic breath. Falling asleep next to her seemed the best thing to do, the only thing to do.

Angie awoke to her alarm at six, just like she did every morning, now. She used to get up at seven, but that was when she lived an hour closer to work. It came as a surprise when she found her beloved husband, cuddled up to her like a newborn. He had his hand on her breast and his leg wrapped around hers, and he made her want to attack him right then and there. But he looked so peaceful. Snoring a little. Head flat on the pillow. Lips parted and scrunched. So cute. She got up silently and dressed in the spare room she used as a walk-in closet, ate a sensible breakfast of Cheerios and toast, and got out the door on time, for a change.

Two steps down the walkway, she heard something that shuddered her very bones. A desperate and innocent wail, communicating only suffering and immeasurable heartbreak. She followed the sound up the back steps, through the covered porch, and inside, where, quickly, she noticed it was coming from the basement.

She didn’t pause to get Brian or anything else. The crying went unabated, growing worse, more urgent, more pained. She couldn’t imagine what was making such a noise, and when she got to the bottom of the brick and cement space, she found nothing but a single, old incandescent light bulb, dangling at the end of a power cord. For such a beautiful house, it had an ugly basement. Dirty floor. Cracked, mismatched walls. Open rafters where spiders reigned supreme. Normally, she never would have been caught dead in such a place. But the crying. It drove her, took control of her, forced her forward, stumbling in the dark, knocking over old paint cans and boxes filled with what sounded like silverware. She found her keychain in her purse, and used the small but powerful flashlight to see where the noise was leading her—to a shadowy corner, and an improvised shelf made of cinder blocks.

The crying stopped, and she saw something shift in the shadow on the bottom shelf. She had to clutch her chest to stop her heart from pounding through it. Somehow she mustered the courage, and moved ahead again, this time pointing the flashlight at the thing that had stirred. Her blood froze when she saw two glowing eyes.

“Oh, my God!” she stepped back. Then the eyes blinked and she heard a distinct and strong purr. A warm, enthusiastic caress against her ankle took away all doubt. “Marmalade! What’re you doing down here?” she picked up and held the cat face-to-face. “You scared mommy!”

The kitty purred louder, then wriggled free, dropping to the floor and heading back to the spot where Angie had found her, on the first shelf of the makeshift cabinet, scratching where the wall met the floor.

“Whatcha lookin’ at down there?” she knelt closer, aiming her mini-light into the tiny space where the cat focused its interest. She made out a straight edge where there shouldn’t have been one, and followed with her light all the way up to another edge, then across and back down. There she saw hinges. A door! Then, the biggest shock. The crying started up again, and it wasn’t Marmalade. No question about it. She knew that sound anywhere. A baby. Alone and confused. Scared and cold. Somewhere on the other side of that door.

“BRIAN!” she shouted on her way up to the bedroom. He heard her before she got to the second floor, flew from bed, and met her in stairway. It scared him to see her so scared. “Downstairs!” she panted. “In the basement!” and she ran so fast her hand slipped out of his. She was already removing the cinderblocks when he got there, flashlight in hand, wondering what the hell his wife was up to. It didn’t take long for him to see the same thing she’d seen—the vague and dust-filled outline of a door, hidden carefully behind the stack of homemade shelves.

“How’d you find this?” he wondered aloud.

“Never mind,” the sobbing infant drove her to work faster, removing the wood planks, tossing aside the bricks. “Just help me. There’s a baby in there.”

“A baby!” he got on his knees and cleared away the rest of the blocks and lumber, searching for a handle, a knob, a bent screw, anything he could get ahold of and open the hidden door. “How do you know it’s a baby?”

“Can’t you hear?” she panted. From the other side of the wall, the crying had turned to gasping, breathless and airy and distressed. “It sounds like its suffocating! Hurry!”

Brian decided to believe her, just in case, despite having no evidence backing up her claims. He heard nothing, but that didn’t mean she didn’t.

“Come on!” she spurred him. She thought the baby had stopped crying altogether now. Couldn’t hear a thing anymore.

“Okay, okay,” he tried to wedge his fingers in the gaps between the door and the frame. He only got a fingernail’s hold, and that wasn’t enough. Then he searched the damp floor, looking for a screwdriver, a file, anything thin and strong. Only thing close was a paint stirrer, and that broke after about three seconds. “Dammit!” he then saw the cat nearby. That’s when his theory began to take shape.

“What are you doing?” Angie begged, straining to hear something that wasn’t there. “Come on, open it!”

“Shhh,” he said, placing his ear to the wall. “Listen.”

She tried to control her breathing, but it was all she heard.

“You sure what you heard was behind here?”

“Yes,” she had no doubt. “I did. It was a baby. Behind there,” she pointed to the hidden door as if accusing it of murder.

“Sweetie, sweetie,” he wrapped her in his embrace, one hand on the small of her back, the other stroking her fine honey-blonde hair. “I love you,” he trapped her with his deep blue eyes. She could never resist him when he was serious about it. “But what you heard wasn’t a baby. It was the cat.”

“How do you know what I heard?” she was adamant. “It sounded like a baby.”

“I know,” he coaxed Marmalade into coming to him. “She makes that noise…kind of a wailing sound. Did it to me earlier. Scared the shit out of me for a second. I thought she was going to wake you up, she was so loud. After a couple minutes, she just stopped. Funny cat,” he picked her up and cradled her.

Angie stared at the strange door, half expecting the baby to start fussing again. It sounded so real. How could she have made such a mistake? “I heard the cat, too. She was howling, but this wasn’t it.”

The more she thought, and the less rapid her heart rate became, and the more she understood the possibility of an infant being in their basement, stashed behind a hidden door, was so low it bordered on impossible. How could a baby be in there? The idea became preposterous. It was the cat. Of course. The cat. She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I’m confused.”

He let Marmalade jump to the floor and held Angie again. “This place is old, but it’s new to us, remember?”

She wouldn’t let it go that easily. “But, Brian. What if it
was
a baby? What if it was?”

“Sweetheart,” he gestured to the ruined cinders, the flattened shelves. “Look at this place. These things have been here a long time. Look at that door, whatever it is. I bet it hasn’t been opened in decades. There’s no baby in there.”

“But…but I heard…”

“You heard the cat, honey,” he said convincingly. “The cat.”

Her head swam with mixed emotions, ripples of anxiety tempered by Brian’s logical approach. The image wouldn’t leave her mind, playing on an endless loop, over and over. A swaddle cloth wrapped tight. Chubby cheeks, ruddy and a bit grimy. Mouth wide, with gums on full display, bawling, bawling, bawling. She hugged her own chest, feeling the warm quivering bundle in her arms.

“Angie?” he had to shake her to get her to look at him again. “You with me, sweetheart?”

She blinked away the daydream and stared at him, still swimming with warmth.

“Honey, you don’t look so good. Maybe you should stay home today.”

She shook out of it, suddenly and seriously concerned about how late she’d become. She’d already had two warnings. One more and she’d be surfing the unemployment website.

“Huh? No,” she said. “I have to go.”

“No you don’t. You can call in sick,” he started to get a few ideas, little tingles in all the right places. “We can stay in bed all day and…you know.”

She glanced at her watch, and her fears were justified. “Honey, I’ve got to go.”

“No, seriously,” he gave her his most pouty, most seductive look, curling his lips into a pucker and flexing his pectorals. “Don’t you want some of this?”

She smiled and kissed his cheek. “Of course. But later. I really gotta go.”

He shrugged. “I just thought that, you know, since you’ve been warming up to the idea of having a baby again, I don’t know…maybe…”

“I hear you,” she struggled for the right way to convey her feelings. “We need to talk about this…later.”

“No,” he snatched her waist with both hands and forced her hips against his. “Now.”

She twisted free and started up the staircase to the first floor. “Later,” she was surprised at his passionate advance, but tried not to let it show.

“Fine!” he accused. “Leave. I know why you want to go so bad. You want to be with HIM!”

She stopped in mid-step, angling her head to look down into his eyes. “What?”

“You heard me. You just can’t wait to get to work so you can be with your boyfriend. You’d rather be with
him
. I know it. You probably want
him
to get you pregnant, because maybe you think
I
can’t. Maybe you think something’s wrong with me.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m being stupid, huh?”

“Yes!” she contemplated just bolting. Then she saw the look in his eyes and went back downstairs. She didn’t stop until she was right in front of him. She held both of his hands. “I want to have a baby, Brian. With
you
. Only with you, okay?” when he didn’t respond, she asked more intently. “Okay?”

He looked up at her and nodded, slowly at first, then more emphatically. His frown reversed into a grateful grin, satisfying her urgency. He knew how to fake it, and she knew when to buy his act and back off. Besides, she was late already, and that long commute loomed like a quest for the Holy Grail. “Okay,” he said finally, but by then she’d released his hands and was halfway up the steps.

“Okay, then,” she ran quite nimbly, even in heels. “We’ll talk about this tonight. Gotta go, have a good day…love you!” and she was out the backdoor.

All the way to work, and all day on the job, the only thing Angie could think about was the indelible image, now tattooed into her memory, of a newborn, stuffed away in the dark recesses of that basement, trapped and cold and alone behind that secret door. And all day, as Brian tried to sleep, he turned and shifted, sheets swimming in sweat, head sticking to the pillowcase, feverous with thoughts and visions of his wife and that man. Mad, sweltering, dripping passion. Cries for mercy, cries for more. He shivered in his own boiling hell.