Lasting Shadows

Lasting Shadows....

By Bonnie Phillips Gardiner

Quinn Tilman glanced in the rear view mirror as the rain spattered and smashed against the windshield. Distant headlights behind him proved everyone else on the road was having as much trouble as he was.

"Damn it," he said. He banged a palm on the steering wheel. "Why does it do this today?" He slowed the car to a crawl and tried to find the marks on the road. The wipers tried but another sudden burst of hard rain was too much for them.

I should just pull off and wait a while. No one could be expecting me to be on time today.

Quinn nodded at his own suggestion and squinted through the windshield to find the side of the road. He parked then sat and stared ahead at the rain. He could just see the tops of the trees move in the wind. The car shivered as another car zoomed past him on the highway, cruising as if there was nothing to lose, no storm to drive through, nothing to slow down whoever was in it. Nothing to keep them from being reckless.

Quinn frowned and looked at his face in the rearview mirror. He studied the lines at the corner of his eyes.

Another book, another adventure.

What was it she said?

"Quinn you're running away from me."

That was it. Yeah. Running away from her.

He looked into his own eyes.

She's right..

Quinn jerked his head away from the mirror and leaned back in the drivers seat. The rain crashed on the roof of the car like tiny missiles.

You are running away. You're using this as an excuse.

Quinn shook his head and squeezed his eyes tight.

"No," he said. "I'm doing this to get a book written."

A crack of lightening flashed through his closed eyelids and thunder roared over him. He grit his teeth as the images of the last few days and the final confrontation with Gin flashed in his mind. Quinn opened his eyes again and glanced in the rearview mirror. The same dark face with deep lines looked back at him.

And here you are. Stuck on the side of the highway during the rain storm of the century.

His eyes fell on the small tape recorder on the passenger seat.

"Well," he said. "There's no better time to get some work done I suppose."

He pushed the record button and began dictating the beginning of the novel.

A half hour later the clouds broke apart and sunlight splashed down on the car through the remaining drizzle. Quinn put down his pen and turned off the tape recorder. The hood sparkled with scattered droplets reflecting the sunlight like miniature flames. He pushed on his sunglasses and cranked up the engine. Behind him he noticed a few other cars along the road also cranking up and heading back out onto the highway.

He let them all pass before he followed.

Quinn reached up and clicked off the tape recorder. He had finished dictating most of the second chapter and finally passed the historical marker. The tiny town of Egypt was the next turn just ahead.

He merged right onto a small road that lead directly into the trees up a small hill. An old wooden sign with handmade letters read: Egypt, two miles. Below that was a smaller painted sign, deliberately trying to be cheery.

'Ed's Grill and Grocery.'

Quinn smiled and sped up into the enfolding shade of twisted oak trees. The silver car zipped through the cover of arced branches like a bolt of lightening itself as he relaxed and tried to enjoy the nearly secluded winding road. He was tempted to open the sunroof and the windows and drink in the clean moist air, but a dark threat hung on the horizon through the trees.

He turned a curve and came out into a clear patch where the trees were cut further back from the road. It was a dangerous curve, a hard bend, narrow and twisting almost back on itself, and there, at the foot of a huge oak tree a memorial wreath and several bouquets of flowers had been propped. Quinn shivered but his eyes were distracted by the flash of something large moving through the trees. He turned the curve and ahead of him just parallel to the road the tail end of a train barreled down the tracks.

His mind flashed the image of the wreath at the foot of the tree.

Racing the train?

He imagined the possible accident with horrible clarity and thought of his own daughter racing the train; his own teenage girl doing something stupid because he wasn't there.

The train whistle blew and called him back to the real world.

Work to do. Think of the book.

Quinn frowned again.

The book. So many still to write and so few ideas coming. The contract had become the enemy of his career. The contract he had once been so proud of. Now it seemed a beast he had to appease once a year.

The whistle blew again. Ahead the trees thinned and vanished. The train still stormed down the tracks to his right. He stayed parallel with one of the huge brown cargo cars.

Quinn squinted even with his sunglasses on. The sun blared through the ever smaller break in the clouds as if gasping its last breath, and just as he glanced up at its friendly warm face, the clouds drifted in hiding it completely. The shadow stretched over the hills and fields around him. Eerily it crept and engulfed his car and the speeding train.

He passed a reduce speed sign.

There were no welcome signs, no fancy frills. Not a courthouse or a police station. All Quinn found in the tiny town of Egypt was a combination general store and restaurant, three churches and a post office made out of a metal storage building. He found the first road and turned right as the old man had explained to him over the phone.

"Past the tracks," Quinn read aloud, glancing at the envelope he'd scribbled the directions on. "The first house on the right. Big tree out front." He nodded.

He slowed at the tracks and looked one last time at the map and the directions.

A blast from a car horn startled him. A school bus stopped in the opposite lane just at the tracks. The kids all leered at him and shouted. Just over the tracks at the very bend in the road ahead the house squatted, dark brown, nearly black with a huge sprawling twisted tree by the front porch.

Thunder rumbled overhead.

Quinn took a deep breath and pulled in the driveway. He parked on the mix of gravel and grass in front of the house and directly under the tree. Heat burst at him as he opened the door and stepped out onto the gravel. It was a hot October despite the wet weather.

The gravel drive was large enough for several cars to park. There was a clearing in the trees on the left of the house, where tall grass almost completely concealed a dirt road and just beyond that was another larger clearing behind a thin row of pine trees concealing the other set of railroad tracks.

The road itself curved to the left just before the tracks. In the curve and across the street from Quinn was a small house almost completely hidden by trees and vines grown along a tall wire fence that wrapped around the whole front of the yard. A horse nodded and snorted inside the enclosure as if welcoming him.

Quinn caught himself almost waving to the animal. Instead his eyes caught a glimmer of something blue sparkling in the vines in front of the beast. He squinted.

A break in the clouds revealed nearly a hundred blue bottles tied to the fence and the vines and along an overhanging branch that curved over the dirt driveway. A breeze swept through as the clouds hid them again and they tinkled like wind chimes in the quiet.

The quiet.

It was suddenly eerily quiet. Even the horse had stopped snorting. Its head was raised, listening.

The train.

A low roar filled the silence. Quinn turned and looked back down the road he had come from and saw the train barrel across, it's whistle blasting. He waited and watched as it passed at a tremendous speed and listened as it rumbled off in the distance.

"Must be a bend in the tracks somewhere back there," he said.

A distinct "harumph" came from the horse's pen. Quinn turned and looked but the horse was nowhere to be seen.

"You won't be here long."

"What?" Quinn pulled off his sunglasses. The bottles were clear and sparkling at him even in the shadows of the clouds. A hundred tiny images of himself reflecting back. "Is someone there?"

"You won't stay long, I say," the voice said again. "No one ever does."

"What?" Quinn glanced back at the house. "You mean here?"

"Yes, I mean here, you dumb boy. She's still here. I see her."

Gravel spat and pelted Quinn's knees and ankles as a dusty old red pickup truck pulled in the driveway just beside him. Quinn had to take a step backwards to avoid being hit. He dusted off his pants legs and looked up. His eyes met the old man's as he poked his head through the open window.

"You Quinn Tilman?" The man looked a hundred and six years old. He wore an old very dirty white t-shirt and a green John Deere baseball cap.

Quinn nodded. "Yeah."

"Good," the old man said. "Come around here and sign these forms and I'll hand over the keys."

The man looked down at something in the truck. No smiles, no nods, no friendliness at all. Quinn walked around the truck. He glanced across the street as he came around the door..

"Won't last . . . Won't stay." He saw her. An old woman peering through the vines at him and scowling. Her words were like chanting, over and over.

"Don't pay her no mind, Tilman," the old man said, without looking up. "She's a crazy old woman. Been living there with her husband for years and years. He gets all their groceries. She never leaves the house. Got some mental something or other wrong with her. No cure. Pretty harmless." He looked up at Quinn with one eye squinted shut. "Crazy . . . but harmless."

Quinn nodded. "Oh," he said. "Okay."

"All right. Here's the rental agreement," the man said. "Just sign right there."

For an instant Quinn thought the old woman might be a decoy to something odd in the contract, but he read over it and found nothing wrong at all. The man waited patiently but tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as Quinn read. His eyes were on the house. Quinn signed the paper and handed it back. The old man handed him the keys and pulled out as quick as he'd pulled in.

"I'll be here the first Monday of every month to pick up the check, Tilman."

Quinn nodded and watched as the truck bounced along the road and disappeared around the corner.

"You won't stay long. That's her house."

Quinn turned his back on the woman and walked straight to the front steps. The keys seemed heavier than the keys to his own house. He glanced down and looked at them, jingling them gently between his fingers. They were knurled looking and black with age. They felt dirty and gritty like old car parts.

Probably everything that old man owns feels like this.

Quinn smiled to himself and climbed the five creaky steps to the porch. To his right a porch swing swayed just a little in the breeze. The largest key fit the hole in the front door and it creaked open with some effort.

I should have asked for this place to be cleaned before I got here.

He stepped inside and choked on the smell. The front door opened right into the kitchen. Though the window shades were pulled the dull brownish light coming through tears in the shades and through the open front door revealed sickly green painted cabinets lining the wall opposite the door. The hardwood floor was covered in spots with vinyl strips and recycled schoolhouse floor tiles. Quinn took a second step in the room as he covered his mouth with a handkerchief and bumped something on the floor with the toe of his shoe. The screen door was lying there, covered in years of dust and cobwebs. He stepped around it carefully and walked up to the kitchen sink. It appeared to be painted black until he leaned in and got a closer look. Something had rotted in the sink. Quinn swallowed the nasty taste in his mouth and closed his eyes as he turned away from the sink.

"Jesus Christ."

He stepped back a couple of steps and opened his eyes. There was a small fridge down under the counter top beside the sink. Taking a deep breath in the handkerchief he knelt down and opened it. The typical reek of shut off refrigerator hit him first, and then he noticed the long out of date gallon milk jug with contents that were certainly not milky white in any way and he saw the remains of a Styrofoam meat package. The remains of the meat were still there, with little wriggly friends. Quinn jerked upright and slammed the fridge.

"Goddamn it!"

He stomped out the front door and down the stairs to his car. He yanked the door open and snatched the cellular phone lying on the passenger seat next to the recorder. He coughed one last time as he dialed the number and looked up at the house as the line rang.

"Hello, Quinn Tilman's office, Nana Farrow here, can I help you?"

"Nana? Oh Jesus." Quinn half laughed. "You're not gonna believe me, I swear."

"What is it Quinn? I thought you were going off to your rental place today?"

"I am, I did, I'm here, but Jesus, Nana, this place . . ." Something looked odd. Quinn walked back to the porch as he talked. "I don't know where to begin . . ."

"It's a dump, isn't it? Oh Quinn, I'm so sorry. They assured me the house was okay." Papers rustled in the background. "If you can stay the night I can get you in another place tomorrow."

Quinn stepped up on the porch and stared in the kitchen through the open front door.

"There's a small town right up the road," she said. "Something-springs. I can't remember the name of it, but I can set everything up and get right back to you. Oh Quinn, I'm so sorry . . ."

He stepped inside. The screen door slammed behind him and he jumped.

"Christ!"

"Quinn? What's wrong?"

He stood for a moment in shocked silence.

"Quinn?"

"Nana," he said. "I walked in this kitchen not five minutes ago. There were rat droppings and spoiled meat in the fridge and dust everywhere. The screen door was lying on the floor under what must have been years of dust and I'm standing in here right now looking at the screen door, in it's place, just where it's supposed to be. Freshly painted even. And the kitchen . . ."

He turned back to the kitchen. There was a rectangular table in the middle of the room. Both windows were covered in cream colored lacy half curtains. The fridge was newer though still small and under the counter and the sink was completely new and had a sickly goldish ceramic finish. The mint green cabinets were cleverly trimmed with yellow flowers around the knobs to match the sink. In the corner was a china cabinet painted also to match and lining the shelves were green and gold dishes. Quinn sat down heavily in one of the dining chairs.

"The kitchen isn't my taste, but it's exactly what you'd expect." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Nana, I'm going out of my mind."

"Oh, Quinn," she said. "No you aren't. You're just under a lot of pressure."

"Yeah, I know."

"I don't want to add to it, but your wife stopped by."

"Great. Don't tell me about it now. Tell me later. I can't take it right now."

"All right."

Quinn leaned back and sighed.

"She's taking half of everything including my royalties, right?"

"No." Nana's voice became small. "She told me to tell you your stuff is being put in storage and she's selling the house. She's gotten an attorney and recommended you get one as well."

Quinn moaned.

"She said if you want joint custody of Angela that's fine, but there will be stipulations and she left this list. . . You know, Quinn, I really shouldn't be reading this stuff to you over the phone. Why don't I just email it to you once you get set up?"

"Yeah," he said. The word sank out of him like a last breath. "Fine. I gotta go."

"Okay, Quinn. Please relax, okay?"

"Yeah."

"And Quinn, if you want me to come down there-"

"No."

There was a sad sigh on the other end of the line.

"All right. Bye."

Quinn turned off the phone and laid it on the table. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He still had to unpack so wallowing in self pity had to wait. He stood up and walked back out to the car.

"See? I told you."

Quinn turned toward the blue bottles. He slid his sunglasses back on and walked toward the street.

"What?"

"What you saw . . . She did it."

Quinn peered through the shrubbery and the bottles and found the white hair and face of the old woman, her pale blue eyes peered back at him.

"That's what she does. She makes you believe. First she wanted you out, but then," As she spoke he could hear her smile. "Then she changed her mind. You might be here a long time after all." Her laugh tinkled with the glass as a gust blew through them and a flash lit up the sky.

Quinn turned slowly away and walked back to his car. He removed his suitcase and briefcase from the trunk of the car and snatched his tape recorder from the passenger seat. He looked back down the road and heard the rain coming, so he slammed the door to the car with his foot and bounded up the stairs. The rain burst down angrily at him as he opened the screen door and carried everything inside. Lightening flashed once more and he turned back to close the front door. Across the street the old woman was dancing in the front yard as if someone was dancing with her. The rain pelted her shirt and her pants and as her shoes came into view from over the fence he saw they were black with mud. An old man burst out of the front door of the tiny shack-like house and grabbed her arms. He seemed to shout at the air around her and she laughed as he pulled her inside. She turned back and waved as the old man shut the door behind them.

"Jesus," he said. He shut the door and locked it, wondering if he remembered to lock the car.

He frowned as he turned back to the kitchen. The left wall jutted out into the room about two feet. Quinn walked around it and found himself facing two doorways. One on the same wall with the kitchen cabinets and one on the wall to the left of the front door. The doorway to the left was open so Quinn walked in. It was smaller than the kitchen. The ceilings in both rooms were very high which gave the rooms a feel of space when really they were quite small. Where the wall jut out in the kitchen was clearly the back of the fireplace in this room, walled in to be more aesthetically pleasing. The only furniture in the livingroom was an old recliner with a greenish goldish flower print, a very frail looking wooden rocker, a table lamp obviously from the sixties and the remains of an old metal tv stand with an ancient tv resting on it at an odd angle.

"Comfy," he said. He smiled.

By the recliner and just behind the tv stand was a boarded up doorway with the door still in it, knob and all. Quinn scratched his head at that and noticed the same curtains as the kitchen hung on both the windows in this room as well.

He turned back and gripped the glass knob of the other door. It resisted at first but finally turned with a click and opened onto a long wide hallway. Quinn noticed a switch to his left and flicked it so the single bulb hanging halfway down came on. The ceiling was lower than a standard ceiling, and far lower than the ones in the livingroom and kitchen. The wood floor was mostly covered by a faded and threadbare oriental runner that wasn't long enough to span the entire length of the hall. It abruptly stopped at the second door on the left. The first door on the left was closed, as was the door on the right, and further down on the right Quinn noticed a turn in the hall. At the far end next to the turn was an open door revealing the profile of a toilet. He walked to the bend in the hall first. Sure enough, at the end of that short stretch of hallway was another door, closed, but much newer looking than the rest of the house. In fact, the walls in that short stretch of hall were paneled, and the door had a typical modern interior brass knob. The floor was covered from the edge of the old hallway to the door in a brown shaggy carpet that had seen much better and thicker days. The bathroom was directly beside him so he reached in and flipped the switch. Inside all the fixtures were powder blue; blue toilet, blue sink, blue tub. The walls were paneled to match the newer hallway and the floor was carpeted in shaggy powder blue, the same style as the brown carpet, but much newer and fluffier. Blue and gold plastic flowers were arranged in a green planter on the back of the toilet, matching the blue and gold flowers of the shower curtain, and hanging in its proper place was a roll of powder blue toilet paper. He stepped in the room and felt the floor bend slightly under him. He backed up into the hall again and took a step into the newer section of hallway. It bent and gave just a bit as well. Quinn half laughed and shook his head.

Unbelievable.

Directly in front of him was the closed door with the modern knob. He opened it and sucked in a breath as a blast of cold air-conditioned air hit him. He reached in feeling for the switch. The storm had moved in over town now and outside was dark as night. He could see rain hitting the windows and hear it hitting the tin roof which seemed much closer and louder in this room than it did in the rest of the house. Not finding a switch he noticed the glint of a chain hanging down from the ceiling light and pulled it. The room was tiny and paneled like the hallway. The brown carpet was in better shape in spots, but the walls and the ceiling were not. Water had at some point leaked in and drained slowly down the walls. They bent inward as if sculpted and the white paint of the ceiling was stained yellowish in a large semi circle spanning half the room. But with all it's faults the air-conditioner in the window worked very well and the bed was large and comfortable looking. The ceiling seemed higher than the hallway but still not quite standard. Though the bed took up almost all of the room, there was a dresser opposite it and a closet door next to the dresser. The closet door was open and the rod was bare.

He turned from the room, again leaving the light on and closing the door behind him, and marched back out into the original hallway. Directly across from the paneled room was the dark cave-like open door at the very end of the wall. Lightening flashed and he saw a window directly opposite him. He cautiously entered the room and found the light switch.

This room was very odd. It was larger than the rest of the rooms in the house, and horizontally split in the middle into two rooms. There was a ladder to the second level and another window at the end, with half of it showing on the first floor and half on the second. The room had to have been built for children, probably boys, as the room was rustic and the ceiling height of both floors were equal, whereas between the door to the room and the window opposite, the original ceiling height was visible and was just as high as the one in the front of the house. The two floors, because of their rustic darkness seemly eerily lit and creepy. So much that as Quinn left the room he switched off the light and closed the door behind him.

He turned toward the front of the house again and looked at the last two remaining doors. The door closest to him was on the same long wall as the last one and at the moment he wasn't too sure what he would find on the other side, so he walked down to the door opposite and opened it. A flash of lightening blinded him. He reached out and found a light switch and flipped it on. He was standing in what must have been an enclosed sun porch at one time. Instead it housed desks and a huge drafting table and shelves. All the drawers were empty and yawning at him, and the shelves were bent from years of too heavy a load. The windows lined the opposite wall and though there was a door there in the middle, the giant metal draftsman's table was anchored to the floor blocking the door from ever being used. Quinn stepped into the room and stumbled. There was a drop of five inches or more from the door to the floor and it creaked and bent worse than the floor in the bedroom. He quickly felt the need to get out of that room and off of that floor, but he glanced back one last time before switching off the light.

There's a story here. I know there is.

He closed the door behind him and there he faced the last room. He took a deep breath and opened it and again found himself facing a large window and high ceilings. He found the switch and gasped.

"Oh my god," he said as he smiled and laughed out loud.

He stood in a little girls room. The floor was covered in thick hot pink carpet, the walls were half wallpapered in a rainbow print and the other walls were painted either pale pink or white. The curtains on the window were tall and white lacy things, fragile and delicate. The bed was a single and build into the wall. The mattress was gone, but the curtains were still there, one to hide the bed and one to hide the space under the bed. Above the bed was a loft, build like the other room, but this one was only the depth of the bed. Also built under the loft closer to the door was a curtained closet and between the closet and the bed was a ladder that climbed up to the loft. Quinn thought a moment and then smiled.

What the hell.

He climbed up the ladder and found the mattress in the loft along with another old tv and something much more interesting. There was a square opening leading from the loft to directly over the hall. Quinn leaned in but couldn't make out anything without a light.

"I'll buy a flashlight tomorrow," he said. He sat down. "Angela would have loved this room when she was small."

Angela.

He sighed deeply.

She'll never understand.

The rain banged on the roof harder than before.

That must be hail.

"And the car's out there with no roof over it."

He climbed back down the ladder and peered out into the darkness through the window. A faint blueish glow filled cracks between clouds. The balls of ice also glowed blue and littered the ground. Quinn shook his head and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Back in the kitchen he found the phone and the phone book and settled down to find some place to get something to eat. The power flickered, knocking out the lights for a second.

Candles. I need some candles.

Quinn glanced at the corner china cabinet and noticed a hurricane lamp and a box of matches.