R&R

Mark Reinhold was jolted from sleep when the house alarm went off. Shooting to his feet from the sofa, where he had been banished after his fight with his wife, Nancy, he looked around the living room confused. He didn’t recognize anything: not the coffee table, the TV on the wall, not even the sofa where he was spending the night. Where am I, his sleep-fogged mind wondered?

           “Mark!” Nancy yelled over the incessant beeping alarm.

           He blinked and everything came into focus. He was not at home, he remembered now. Nancy had rented them a house from an online site called R&R (Rest and Relax) for a secluded weekend getaway to try and work on their marriage. Just the two of them. No kids. No distractions. It was Nancy’s idea. Mark just agreed to avoid another fight.  

           “Mark?” Nancy said from the second floor of their rental home. “What’s going on?”

           Stepping away from the sofa, Mark’s foot caught in the throw blanket he used to cover with, and he nearly fell into the coffee table but retained his balance before he cracked his skull wide open. Nancy probably wouldn’t even care.

           “Can you shut that thing off!” Nancy shouted. “Mark!”

           The beeping seemed to be getting louder the longer it was going off.

           “I’m getting it!” God forbid you’d walk down the steps and punch in the code yourself. I have to do everything! 

           The tile floor in the kitchen was cold on Mark’s bare feet, and he wished he would have slipped on his flipflops before heading to turn off the alarm. He glanced at the rear door as he passed to make sure it was locked. It was.

           “Mark!”

           “I’m coming!”

           Beside the front door, Mark reached for the keypad to punch in the code for the alarm but stopped. What was the code? It started with a one, right? Mr. Hendershot, the home’s owner, had met them earlier that day to pass along the keys and to give a tour of the house and property. After the tour, Hendershot told them the alarm code. But for the life of him, Mark couldn’t remember what it was at the moment.

           “Well? What are you waiting for?”

           “Do you remember the code?” Mark turned and looked up the steps where Nancy stood in her nightgown, her strawberry blonde hair a tangled mess, eyes puffy from being woken from sleep.

           “Jesus.” Nancy rolled her eyes condescendingly, something she always did when he displeased her one way or another. “One-one-three-four.”

           He punched in 1-1-3-4 into the alarm’s keypad. The beeping instantly stopped, and the house fell into a heavy silence.

           “What set it off?” Nancy asked.

           “Don’t know.” Mark looked through the front doors wavey glass window to see if he could spot anything or anyone who might’ve triggered the alarm. But all he could see was blackness, except for the small circles of light on the ground from the walkway lanterns. The woods surrounding the house were so dense even the moonlight couldn’t penetrate the thick canopy of green leaves. “Could’ve been an animal.”

           “Is the front door locked?”

           “Yes.”

           “Go make sure nothing got in somewhere else.”

           Mark hung his head. All he wanted to do was return to the sofa and go back to sleep. He was exhausted from the four and half-hour drive from Pittsburgh to the house in the Poconos, bringing their luggage in, and then making them dinner – which he did while Nancy sat on her butt sipping wine, eating bites of cheese, and texting. Who was she texting? One of her friends? Jean or Megan? No. She never looked like a giddy schoolgirl when texting either of them. Someone else? A male friend perhaps?

           “What are you waiting for? Now, Mark!”

           “I’m going.”

           He turned but was stopped in his tracks by what he saw. What in the…

In the foyer, was a small table with a guestbook on top. Mr. Hendershot had asked them to sign it before they left. The book was open.

           “Nancy?”

           “What?” she snapped; the throngs of their earlier argument still prevalent in her tone.

           “Did you close the guestbook after you signed our names in it?”

           “I believe so.”

           “You believe so?” he looked up the steps at her. “You either did or you didn’t, which is it?” 

           “You know I did.”

           “No. I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”

           “I…” Nancy’s eyes dance with uncertainty. “What does it matter?”

           “Because if you didn’t leave the guestbook open. And I didn’t touch it…”

           Mark looked to his wife at the top of the steps. He watched her face go from annoyed to confused to mortified in a blink of an eye. Gathering her long nightgown up in her right hand, Nancy started down the steps and stood next to him in the foyer. Mark looked back to the guestbook.

           “Are you sure you didn’t leave it open?”

           She nodded.

           “There’s something written in it. You see it?” Mark asked.

           Slowly, Nancy inched closer to the table, like she was afraid something might leap out at her. A message had indeed been scrolled across the entire right page of the guestbook in large black letters. Nancy sucks in an audible breath and Mark swallows - his throat made a grinding sound it was suddenly so dry – reading the message.

            YOU’RE GOING TO DIE TONIGHT!

           “Where’s your cellphone?” Mark asked, feeling his throat tighten.

           “Upstairs. Beside the bed.”

           “Go get it. Call the police. I’m going to check the garage to make sure no one got in.”

           Mark started down the hallway while Nancy bolted up the stairs, her footfalls on the wooden steps sounded like thunderclaps. Rounding the corner into the kitchen, Mark moved to the door leading to the garage. He pulled it open, slowly, and peered into the blackness. Can’t see anything. His fingers fumbled up the wall for the light switch. Thoughts of something lurking in the dark, reaching out and taking hold of his wrist, wiggled into his mind uneasily. Stay calm.  Finally, his fingers found the switch. The overhead lights blinked on, and the garage filled with the soft hum of the fluorescent lights.

           But the garage is empty. The doors are down and secured. No one was getting into the house through there.

           Is this some kind of joke?

“Mark!” Nancy screamed from upstairs. Something about her scream caused the hairs on his arms to stand on end.

           “Yeah?”

           He heard her feet pounding on the steps again, coming back down.

Then, a quiet stillness enveloped the air around him as if Nancy had suddenly vanished.

           “Nancy…Nancy?”    

Not getting a reply, Mark started back to the hallway, worried why she didn’t respond. He found her standing in the foyer; her eyes are wide with terror, and all the color had drained from her face, making her look like a corpse.

“What is it?”

           Without saying a word, Nancy raised her right hand and pointed her index finger at something he cannot see. Not understanding what she’s pointing at, Mark started to her, and followed her outstretched finger back to…

           The guestbook.

           This time, Mark sucked in the audible breath and his hand involuntarily shot to his open mouth, covering it. Another message was written in the guestbook, right under the one they had found earlier.

           YOU HAVEN’T CHECKED THE BASEMENT.

           “Call the police. Right now,” Mark said, his voice breaking.

           “My cell…it’s…gone,” Nancy replied.

           He shuddered. The tips of his fingers and toes began to buzz uncomfortably. What’s going on here?

           “Gone? What do you mean it’s gone?”

           “It’s not on the nightstand where I left it.” 

           “Maybe you dropped it beside the bed. Go look again.”

           “I didn’t drop it.”

           “It has to be up there.”

           “It’s not.”

           “It has to be. You just didn’t look! Typical.”

           “I looked, damnit! It’s not there. If you want to look, be my guest. But I’m telling you it’s gone.”

           He slowly turned to face her. If Nancy was lying to him about her missing cellphone, it didn’t show on her face. In fact, what Mark saw was a woman scared out of her mind. Unless…

           He thought back to Nancy texting earlier that evening. Was she in contact with someone who had followed them up there?

           “Are you doing this?” he asked.

           “What?”

           “This.” Mark pointed to the guestbook. “There’s no one in this house. All the doors are locked. So that could only mean someone in this house could have written the messages, and I know it wasn’t me.”

           “You think I wrote those?” Nancy asked, pointing at herself.

           “Just answer the question.”

           “This is crazy.” She walked past him. “Where’s your phone? I’ll use it to call the police.”

            “What’s in the basement?” Mark asked, following her into the kitchen.

           She surveyed the kitchen for Mark’s cellphone. When she didn’t find it on the counter or table, she moved into the living room and started to look there.

           “What’s in the basement?” Mark repeated, watching her stuff her hands between the seats of the couch cushions. She looked like a treasure hunter searching franticly for coins in the sand, hoping when she brings them up, she’ll have the booty.

           “What’s in the goddamn basement, Nancy!” Mark shouted.

           “I don’t know!” Nancy hollered back. She cupped her hand over her mouth and tilted her head into her chest, something she always did when Mark pushed her too far during one of their many arguments.

           For a moment, Mark felt the need to apologize. And he knew he should. It was stupid of him to think that his wife of ten years, the mother of his children (two boys 8 and 10), would do something this maniacal. They had problems in their marriage, Mark didn’t deny this, but nothing that warrented her wanting to harm him.

           “I left my phone on the coffee table,” Mark finally says, his voice calmer.

           “It’s not there.”

           “Maybe it fell –“

           “It didn’t.” Nancy sounded defeated. But Mark knew she was right, and he hates that she is. Someone had snuck into the house, scribbled in the guestbook, and took their phones while they were asleep or distracted. There was no way for them to reach anyone and the house didn’t have a landline.

           “Where are the car keys?”

           “In my purse. Upstairs. On the dresser.”

           “I’m going to go get them.”

           “Maybe I should go with you?”

           Mark thought about it. It made sense to stay together, especially if someone was in the house trying to harm them. But Mark was concerned about being able to get out of the house. To make sure that happened, they needed to have a clear path of escape and the front door was their best option.

           “Stand by the front door and wait for me while I go upstairs and get the keys.”

           “Why?”

           “Because I don’t want anything to slow us down getting to the car. You stay there and watch the door until I get back.”

           Moving together as a couple, the first time they actually worked in tandem in several years, Mark realizes, they started down the hallway. At the front door, Mark flipped the deadbolt and pulled the door open a crack; he felt the warm summer air on his skin and heard the crickets and cicadas singing their nighttime music.

           “I’ll be right back.”

           Nancy eyes glistened with tears, but she bravely agreed to hold the line. Mark thought about embracing her. Giving her a reassuring kiss. Or whispering in her ear that everything was going to be alright, just like he had done many times in the past after losing his temper during one of their fights and blew up like a stick of TNT, leaving her a sobbing mess in the wake of his emotional destruction. It’s alright. It’s okay, he would croon in her ear. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. But you shouldn’t have pressed my buttons either.

           At the top of the stairwell, Mark looked back down at his wife. She looks as scared as a lamb being led to the slaughter, he thought. It was a look Mark was familiar with, one he had put on Nancy’s face many times in ten years of marriage. He didn’t want to be that guy, but she made him into that guy from years of whining and complaining, not to mention all the ball-busting, man-hating garbage she puked up day in and day out. Sometimes when he looked in the mirror at himself, he didn’t even see Mark Reinhold anymore, but a rundown old man hanging on to his sanity and marriage by a thread.

           Turning away, Mark hurried down the hall and into the bedroom.

           “Nancy?”

           “Yeah?”

           “Just checking on you, babe.”

           He found Nancy’s purse sitting on the dresser like she said it would be. Pulling it open, Mark found the car keys inside the small front pocket of the purse, where Nancy always kept them.

           “Nancy?”

           Silence.

           “Nancy?”

           More silence.

           With purse in hand, Mark hurried back to the stairs.

           “Nancy why didn’t-“

           His words caught in his throat when he saw Nancy wasn’t by the front door, where he left her only moments ago.

           “Nancy?”

           Hurrying down the stairs into the foyer with the purse tucked under his right arm, Mark’s eyes are drawn back to the guestbook. An icy hand clasped around his heart and squeezed, freezing him in place; eyes locked onto the guestbook. Another message had been left.

           YOU STILL HAVEN’T CHECKED THE BASEMENT!

           What was in the basement? And why in god’s name…

            He forced the frightening message from his mind. All Mark wanted to do was get out of there. He hurried back into the kitchen, hoping to find Nancy waiting for him. He was going to give her a piece of his mind for abandoning her post by the front door. But what he found instead caused a yelp to escape his mouth. 

The door to the basement was open; a waiting black hole leading down into the earth.

And then it hits Mark like a lightning strike what happened.

           Nancy’s in the basement! Whoever was doing this, wanted them to go down there. But why? What’s in the basement? And why did Nancy think it was a good idea to go down there on her own?

           Maybe she didn’t. Maybe someone took her down there.

 Swallowing his fear, Mark stepped into the basement’s threshold and looked down into the abyss. He can feel himself shaking with fear. The first five steps are visible, but the rest are hidden in the murkiness. A foul smell – a mixture of moldy bread and rotten eggs – emanates from the blackness, gagging him.

“Nancy!” he called out. “Nancy, can you hear me?”

           He knows a brave, loyal husband would rush down to save his wife from imminent danger. But Mark’s not that kind of husband.

           You have the keys to the car. Just leave and never look back.

He’s sure the police will have questions about why he fled. Why he didn’t try and save his wife. But he’ll tell them the truth: someone broke into the house while they were asleep, took their cellphones and kidnaped his wife.

You can take the guestbook as proof that you had nothing to do with it.

He wondered what life would be like without Nancy’s constant yipping. Peace and quiet for once? He was almost giddy with the idea of being this close to regaining his freedom.

The door to the garage suddenly burst open. A gurgling scream erupted from Mark’s throat as a figure charged from the blackness at him. He tried to get his hands up to protect himself. But he’s too late and he’s shoved backwards, towards that waiting dark hole leading into the basement.

Falling through the threshold of the basement, Mark tried to grab hold of the doorframe, but his hand missed, and gravity took hold of him. He came down hard on his back, the wooden steps punching into his spine at the base of his neck. He hears something crack in his ears that reminds him of a tree branch snapping and a flash of intense pain sets every nerve ending in his body ablaze. He rolled the rest of the way down the steps and slammed into the basement wall at the bottom, bounced off, and came to rest on his back, bathed in a square of light from the open door above.

Dazed, disoriented, and severely injured, Mark’s eyes lulled back to the top of the basement stairs. Someone’s standing there.

“Oh, Mark, you fell down the steps of a strange house.”

Nancy?

“You…did…all of this?”

She’s beaming with delight. And for the first time in years, Mark saw her smiling. Truely smiling. 

“Did what? I was asleep in bed and didn’t find you until morning.”

“Please…you must…help me,” Mark choked out. He didn’t know specifically what was broken – something in his neck - but it left him unable to move, unable to pull a full breath. Somewhere internally, he knew if he didn’t get medical attention immediately he would die. “Nancy…please…”

“I brought us here for the sake of our marriage,” she says, her voice cold as ice. “Consider this our divorce you abusive bastard.”

Nancy took hold of the door...

“W-wait-”

…and slammed it shut.