After Midnight

2
THE STRANGER

Midnight.
I wished I was already back inside my safe little place above the garage.
Before I could be there, though, I had to get there.
Getting there was the bad thing about staying in Serena and Charlie’s house. It was the price that had to be paid. Not a terrible price, really. I’d always been willing to pay it for the luxury of using their house.
I mean, it was my choice to stay after dark, to stay until midnight. I could’ve returned to my place before sundown, or even kept out of their house entirely and avoided the whole problem.
Or, having stayed late, I could’ve avoided the return trip by remaining in the house.
But here’s the deal.
It only takes me two or three minutes to step outside, hurry over to the garage, climb the flight of stairs to my door, unlock it and get inside. If I’m really scared, I can probably do it in less than a minute.
The trip always frightens me, but it doesn’t last long. If I avoid it by spending all night in the house, however, I end up being tormented for hours and hours, not a few minutes.
It makes sense to me.
I do things my own way, that’s the thing. If enjoying the luxuries of the house means I have to make a scary rush back to my own place in the middle of the night, so be it. I’ll pay the price.
Anyway, it was time to go. Past time.
So I shut off the television, then turned off all the lamps in the den. After that, there was only darkness except for a dim, gray glow of moonlight that seeped in through the curtains. I opened the curtains. The glow brightened a lot. I stepped up close to the glass door and looked out.
With the den dark behind me and the area behind the house spread with moonlight, I felt invisible.
I took my time, gazing out. I wanted to be completely sure it was safe before unlocking the door and stepping into the night.
Impossible, of course.
You can never be sure it’s safe.
The full moon, that night, was very bright. It laid a dazzling silver path across the surface of the swimming pool. The concrete around the pool looked gray like dirty snow. The lawn beyond the concrete was as dark as the water. Like the water, it had a path of moonlight. The path on the grass was as dim as old iron, but led straight to the brilliant path that came over the pool toward me.
At the far end of the lawn, the forest started. The tops of the trees looked as if they’d been misted with silver spraypaint. Below their tops, the trees were completely dark. So dark they looked gone. They cast a black shadow over part of the lawn.
I saw nobody.
But there was so much blackness.
Someone might be lurking at the border of the woods, or even closer than that.
In the pool, for instance.
The water level is a foot or more below the rim, so the far wall casts a shadow along its entire length. A dozen faces—two dozen—might be hidden in that strip of blackness…all of them watching me. The near side of the pool could provide another hiding place, not because of any shadow but because the concrete edge, itself, blocked my view of whatever might be waiting beneath it.
If he preferred to stay dry, an assailant might simply wait for me, nearby but out of sight, with his back pressed to the very wall of the house. I wouldn’t be able to spot him there until I’d opened the door and leaned out. And that might be the end of me.
Or he might position himself around the corner to jump me in the space between the house and the garage.
Do you see what I mean about safety?
I stared out the door for a very long time. Even though I saw nobody, I couldn’t quite force myself to move. I kept thinking about all the places where someone might be.
My breath kept fogging up the glass. I guess that’s because the air conditioner was on in the house. Every now and then, a milky white cloud would ruin my view. I had to sway to one side or another, or crouch, in order to find some clear glass. Sometimes, I wiped away the fog with my hand or forearm or the front of my robe.
The way I’m telling it, you must think I was standing there forever and that I’m a hopeless coward.
It sort of felt like forever, but it probably wasn’t more than fifteen or twenty minutes.
And even though I’m not the bravest person in the world, it’s a fact that I’d made the trip from the house to the garage many times in the past, often at very late hours of the night. Serena and Charlie did a lot of traveling. I’d lived above their garage for three years, and I always came over when they were away.
Sometimes, I hardly gave a glance out the door before sliding it open and walking out. That was rare, but it happened. More often, I spent five or ten minutes. A couple of times, I’d been so spooked that it had taken me more than an hour to work up my courage to leave.
But I’d always gone, sooner or later.
So I wouldn’t call myself a hopeless coward.
I’m a hopeful one.
Finally, you decide it’s time. You hope nobody’s out there waiting to jump you, because you can’t be sure. Then you take a deep breath, flip open the lock, roll open the door, and go for it.
That night, the time finally came.
I was trembling quite a lot by then. Also, my robe was hanging open because I’d been using it to wipe the glass. I pulled it shut, tightened the silk belt, took a deep breath that trembled on its way in, and unfastened the lock.
I pulled, and the door rolled away to my right.
Things looked so much clearer, suddenly.
Just at that moment, before I’d even had a chance to step outside, someone crept out of the blackness at the edge of the woods.
I almost made a sudden break for the garage. But I held back.
If I darted out and ran, he would see me for sure.
And do what? Chase me down?
Holding my breath, staying absolutely motionless except for my right arm, I slowly reached sideways and found the door handle. I pulled gently, easing the door along its tracks. It made a soft rumbling sound, which the stranger didn’t seem to hear.
As I slid the door shut in front of me, I kept my eyes on him.
If he noticed me, he gave no sign of it. His head didn’t seem to be fixed in my direction. It turned this way and that. A few times, he even glanced over one shoulder or the other.
The full moon lit his hair and shoulders, but not his face. Most of his front was vague with shadow. I could make out his silhouette clearly, though. He was wearing shorts, but no shirt. When I caught a side view, he didn’t seem to have breasts.
That was my big clue as to his gender.
The stranger still might’ve been a girl—maybe a thin and shapeless tomboy—but I doubted it.
This was a guy.
A guy who’d come sneaking out of the woods and was making his way closer and closer to the house.
Soon, the door bumped softly shut in front of me. I fastened its lock, then took one step backward and stopped.
I knew exactly what to do.
Hurry over to the telephone and call the police.
It’s what I intended to do.
But the telephone was out of reach. To put my hands on it, I would need to abandon the glass door and make my way through the darkness to the other end of the couch.
That couldn’t be done without losing sight of the intruder.
So I stood where I was, and watched him.
He still seemed unaware of my presence. Maybe that was an act, but I doubted it. Though he was stealthy about the way he approached the house, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
Maybe he cut the phone line and knows I can’t call for help.
Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. That’s movie stuff, cutting phone lines. Nobody does it in real life.
Do they?
More than likely, he didn’t even know I was in the house: I’d turned off the lights fifteen or twenty minutes before he put in his appearance. For all he knew, nobody was home.
But how long had he been watching?
What if he’d started watching before the lights went out?
Suppose he’s been watching me all day?
When that thought shoved its way into my mind, I suddenly felt sick with fear.
What does he want?
Maybe nothing. Maybe he’s just a guy who happens to enjoy wandering around in the middle of the night. Maybe just someone who got lost in the woods and only now has managed to find his way out.
Or a harmless nut of some kind.
Or…
A burglar. A rapist. A killer.
Trembling, I watched him step onto the concrete directly across the pool from where I stood.
He had no weapons or tools that I could see.
But his shorts had pockets.
Near the edge of the pool, he stopped. He seemed to stare straight at me.
He can’t see me, I told myself. The room’s completely dark. The moon is probably glaring on the door glass.
His head swiveled slowly from side to side. He turned around in a complete circle as if to make sure he wasn’t being observed. Then he took off his shorts.
They appeared to be cut-off jeans. First he had to unbuckle his belt. After the belt was open, he unfastened a button or snap at his waist and lowered the zipper. Bending over, he drew the shorts down his legs. Then he stepped out of them and stood up straight.
The moon, high in the sky behind him, rimmed his body with white so I could see right away that he didn’t have on a stitch of clothing.
Though his front was poorly lighted, I could see the general gray of his bare skin all the way from his face down to his feet. His eyes and mouth looked like dim smudges. His nipples were like an extra set of eyes spaced wide apart on his chest. His navel was just a small, dark dot. Down from there was more skin, then a nest of hair and his penis.
He stood there for a while as if he wanted me to take a good, long look at him—even though I know he couldn’t see me standing on the other side of the glass door.
Then he looked around, turning his head and body. When he turned, I got a side view.
It made me feel a little sick.
And very frightened.
He wants to shove that into me.
No, he doesn’t, I told myself. He doesn’t even know I’m here.
He’d better not. If he knows, he won’t quit till he nails me with that thing.
The prowler sat down on the concrete, swung his legs over the edge of the pool, scooted forward and slid down into the water.