Safe at Home by O. H. Reads - HTML preview

Safe at Home

Peter Hunt, HR manager at TransSpeed Delivery, sat back in his chair and looked across his somewhat cluttered desk at the woman he was interviewing for one of the two open positions of counter clerk.  She had just graduated from college with a degree in business communications.  She was smart, pretty, but reserved.  Perhaps that was why she was applying for a job that was obviously far beneath her skill set.

“I'm just a little curious, Miss Dunbar, as to why you're applying for this position.  To be blunt, you're over-qualified.  We like to hire people we believe will be with us for a long time.  After all, training employees isn't cheap.  I'm worried we'll hire you, you'll work here for three months, and then you'll leave for the first job that comes up that more closely matches your degree.”

Carrie Dunbar leaned forward a bit in her chair to look him in the eyes directly.  She knew her light brown eyes sometimes had a hypnotic effect on people, so she was hoping to apply that talent here.

“Mr. Hunt,” she said softly, “before I graduated from college I had received four job offers, including one from a company I had already been an intern with.  I didn't select TransSpeed at random.  I've read the company history and studied the company financials that are publicly available.  TransSpeed is a growing company with a bright future.  I may be applying as a clerk today, but I believe as TransSpeed grows, I can grow with it.  You may be hiring a clerk today, but I know you'll be getting much more than that.”

Whether it was her answer or her eyes that did it, it didn't matter.  Peter Hunt smiled and leaned forward.

“I believe that too,” he said.  “Welcome to TransSpeed, Miss Dunbar.”

He stood up and offered her a congratulatory handshake.  Carrie stood up and accepted.  With a smile she left the office and got into her car.  She breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she started it up.  What she had said was true.  She had indeed had four other job offers, all of which offered more money.  But she didn't want to travel or work at places that kept her routinely after dark.  A job as a counter clerk, where she could clock out and be gone before dark each day, was just what she wanted.  Carrie was afraid of the dark.  Or rather, Carrie was afraid of what was in the dark.

* * * * * * *

Carrie was just 4 years old when her parents were killed.  She had been home with a babysitter while her parents had gone out.  As usual, she had gone to bed at 8:00.  For some reason she had been unable to fall asleep.  At about 10:00 she had heard her parents' car drive up.  But the sound of their arrival hadn't calmed her in any way.  Rather, she had felt more tense.  Anxious, she had crawled out of bed and gone to her bedroom window that overlooked the driveway.  The car was sitting in the driveway, engine running.  The garage door wasn't going up.  Carrie watched her dad step out of the car and walk toward the panel on the garage door.  Just as he was about to get there something moved in the bushes next to the house.  Her father had apparently noticed it too because he froze.  There was a sound, Carrie would later learn to recognize it as a predatory growl, then something dark jumped from the shadows and landed on her father.

He struggled and screamed, making sounds Carrie had never thought could come from a human being.  For some reason that Carrie could never come to terms with, her mother had gotten out of the car and run toward her husband.  Before she could get there a second shadowy form had emerged and attacked her.  The screaming and struggling had lasted for only a few more moments.  The dark creatures then melted back into the darkness and disappeared.  The babysitter had come outside just seconds later.  As soon as she had seen the bodies she screamed and fled back into the house.  Minutes later the police had come.  Carrie could only stare in terrified silence at the bloody bodies that had been her parents as the sirens began wailing and blue, red, and white lights flashed throughout the night.

Through her tears, Carrie told the police what she had seen.  The police searched with flashlights that night and other people came the next day, but whatever creatures had killed her parents were gone.  In the end, investigators concluded a pair of big cats, most likely mountain lions, were the cause of death.  They searched houses for illegal cages, then had combed through the canyons and hillsides.  They had never been found.

Lacking any relatives, Carrie had been placed in foster care.  Carrie had been too young and traumatized to realize how abusive her first set of foster parents had been to her.  She knew they cared little for her, and she in turn cared little for them.  Six months after being placed in the home, the two people she was supposed to call “mom” and “dad” had left her alone while they went out.  Carrie had eaten the cold, meager meal they'd left out for her and crawled sadly into bed.  When they had at last come home late that night, Carrie was awake. 

Carrie's bedroom was in the back of the house, and despite the fact she had been slapped more than a few times for being out of her bed after 7:00, she had come out of her room and walked toward the front door.  She had been perhaps 10 feet from the door when a growl stopped her.  It was like the growl of the dog they kept in the backyard, but so much deeper.  Carrie heard her foster parents talking and laughing loudly one moment, then deathly silence the next.  A moment later the silence was torn by shrieking and screams.  The dog in the backyard, who barked at anything, was strangely quiet.  Less than a minute later, there was no sound.  A huge shadow seemed to float across one of the windows at the front of the house, then nothing.  The police came the next morning, called by a neighbor who had seen the two bodies out front.  Carrie found herself back in the foster care system looking for another home.

The pattern had continued throughout her childhood.  She would be with a foster family for a few months or even in one case an entire year, then one or both parents, coming home after nightfall, would be killed.  By the time Carrie was 10 she had gone through six sets of foster parents.  Each death was the same, something akin to a large cat.  Coincidence turned into suspicion and at one point Carrie overheard a conversation between an investigator and some of the people who ran the foster home.  Carrie's parents had left behind a considerable sum of money.  The money was to be used to care for her.  When she turned 18, $50,000 was to be given to whoever her parents were.  But if the foster parents died while caring for Carrie, their assets were to be put into Carrie's trust.  The trustee had been questioned four times, and each time he had been released.  Nothing could connect him to any of the killings.  But the impact had remained.  Carrie became the cute, rich orphan that nobody wanted.

In high school she was the girl everyone wanted to date, though she never went out if the date happened after dark.  People called her funny names, but Carrie held firm.  She didn't need to be a police detective to understand that anyone close to her was in danger after dark.  Her freshman year in college had seen her break that rule one time.  The guy had been so nice, and the movie was one she had really wanted to see.  His body had been found two days later, mauled by what was believed to be a big cat.

Since then Carrie had never gone out at night.  She lived alone in a gated condo complex, leaving in the morning and coming home before sunset.  No one associated with her was safe after dark.  She wasn't even sure if she was.

* * * * * * *

As Carrie had claimed in her interview, she had proven to be a valuable asset to TransSpeed.  Within two months of her hire she had made some suggestions to procedures, which had saved the company a small amount of money in the short term and a larger amount over time.  Four months after that she had suggested a move to a newer technology that would be even more cost-effective.  Six months later she had been promoted to assistant manager.  Now with some degree of control over her schedule, her life had started to become routine.  Routine meant Carrie could start being friendly to some of her co-workers.  Routine meant Carrie could relax.  Routine meant complacency.

About a year later, two years after Carrie had begun working at TransSpeed, she had finally been talked into going out after work with some of the other counter staff.  It hadn't been that hard.  She hadn't seen or heard any of the shadow creatures in years, and going home to an empty condo was never a lot of fun.  So she went.

There were six of them and after a brief discussion they decided on the White Elephant, a small bar/restaurant about a half mile from work.  As Carrie drove over she found herself singing along to the radio.  It dawned on her how much she missed the company of others then.  The thought of what she had been missing out on caused a tear to come to her eye.  What had those creatures, whatever they were, stolen from her?  They had isolated her.  They had made her alone.

“Damn you to hell!” she muttered under her breath.  “Damn you!”

As she pulled into the parking lot she noted that she still had about an hour before sunset.  And from there she had another 30 minutes or so to get home.  She had time.

Carrie found her co-workers at two tables pulled together.  She walked up to them and they greeted her.

“It's about time we got you to come out!” said Stacy, a manager from one of the other departments.

“Some of us just work harder than others and need to go home and rest,” Carrie shot back playfully.

Carrie sat down, ordered a drink, and let the fun begin.  She laughed, talked, and forgot herself.  For a time, life was for her what it was for most people.  That time seemed like only minutes when she happened to glance at a window.  It was dark outside.  She froze, her glass inches from her mouth.

“What's wrong?” asked one of her co-workers.

Carrie stared out the window.  There were so many shadows.

“Hey, you okay?”

Carrie shook herself.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, trying to look and sound normal.  “I just realized I was supposed to...um...call my doctor.  I was supposed to set up an appointment.”

“Now?  Isn't that a bit late?”

“She keeps odd hours,” Carrie said.  “I gotta go.”

Carrie hastily grabbed her things, put some money on the table to cover her bill, then almost ran from the place.

Carrie bumped into two cars in the parking lot, distracted by shadows cast from the lights in the parking lot.  A couple people looked at her like she was drunk and shouldn't be driving, but she didn't care.  She had to get home.

When she got to her car she paused.  There were no shadows around it except for underneath.  She had to chance it.  She couldn't stand in the parking lot forever.  She remotely unlocked the car, looked around, counted to three, then grabbed the door and got in.  She slammed the door behind her.  She waited until she stopped trembling before starting the car.

“You can do it,” she whispered out loud.  “You'll make it home.  You'll make it home,” she repeated.

The car started and she pulled out.  Something moved just off to her left and she nearly gave herself whiplash trying to see it.  She was more spooked when she saw nothing there.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she mumbled.

She tried to stay calm on the way home, but she drove faster than she should have, nearly ran into a car as she ran a red light, and practically screeched into her complex's parking lot.  Carrie shut the car off and looked around.  Her condo was on the second floor.  The parking lot had lights and the walkways in front of the condos were also lit, but there were two areas with bushes she would have to pass to reach the stairway.  The elevator, better lit but farther away, wasn't an option.

Counting to three again Carrie got out of her car and raced like a lunatic for the stairway.  She grabbed the rail at the base and practically stumbled up the first three steps before regaining her balance.  At the top of the stairs she ran down the hallway to her door, key already in hand.  She fumbled at the lock for a moment, then got the key in and nearly broke it twisting it in the lock.  She threw open the door, jumped inside, then slammed the door shut behind her, shaking the wall of the building.

Carrie quickly slid the two bolts in place and leaned against the door, exhausted.  Sweat was pouring from her and her breathing was ragged.  Then she started to laugh.  Not loudly, but with a sense of maniacal relief.  She'd made it.  She'd been out past dark and no one had gotten killed.

Carrie stood up against the door and took a deep breath.  And then a shadow quickly flitted past her balcony.

“An owl,” she said to herself in a whisper.  “Just an owl.”

But she didn't move.  There was no connection to her balcony from the floor or a neighbor.  Whatever she had seen was either on the balcony itself or had moved by it in the air.  When a minute had passed and nothing happened, and there was no sound, Carrie started to relax.  It had either been an owl or just her imagination.  She moved quickly to the balcony and pulled the curtains, closing it from view.  Normally she left the curtains open so she could have daylight when she got home.  She might have to reconsider that now.  When there was no further sound or movement, she began to relax a little more.  A nervous giggle escaped her.

Several minutes later Carrie came out of the shower and moved to her bedroom.  The events of the last half hour had drained her of any desire to do anything but crawl into bed.  She dressed for bed and snuggled under her covers, intending to read a book for a couple hours or until she fell asleep.  She had just opened the book and was about to pick up where she left off when she heard it, the unmistakeable low growl that had haunted her for years.  It wasn't coming from the balcony but from just outside the front door.  Carrie froze in terror.

A minute later Carrie hadn't moved and had hardly breathed.  Another minute passed in silence.  And another.  Carrie was about to relax when she heard the sound of something scraping against the front door of her condo.  It started from the top of the door and then slowly slid all the way to the bottom.  When the scraping stopped, another, softer growl could be heard.  Carrie dropped her book and pulled the covers up to just below her nose.  It was out there waiting for her.  And she knew, sooner or later, it would come in.

Neither the growl nor the scrape repeated itself, but Carrie didn't move or sleep the entire night.  When the light from outside began to brighten and she knew it was daylight, she was still frozen in place.  It wasn't until her alarm went off and she started in fear that she made herself move.  She crawled out of bed and stretched, stiff from a night of not moving.  But she was alive.  She was alive.  Her euphoria was tempered by her tiredness.  She would celebrate later by coming home before dark and enjoying her book.  She was alive.

As she walked out of her condo and turned to lock the door she noticed the gouges on the door.  There were three in a long line from the top to bottom.  The grooves were deep, maybe a quarter inch.  Whatever it was, it had been there, waiting for Carrie.  She would need to buy a heavy duty screen for the door.  And then she wondered if that would really make a difference.  She shuddered.

* * * * * * *

Carrie endured the jokes for a few days about her rapid departure from the get-together with good humor, refusing to say anything more about why she had run from the restaurant.  When the jokes died down things returned to normal and Carrie's life fell back into routine.  But there would be no complacency this time.  Carrie would stick to her own rules.  She would not be out after dark.

On the Friday of that week, about a half hour before her shift ended, Carrie was filling in at the counter for a worker on break when a man walked in the door carrying a box to be shipped.  Why her eyes had been drawn to him when he entered she couldn't say, but they lingered on him.  He was somewhere around six feet tall with a lean but not skinny build.  His hair was neatly cut around his symmetrical face and he had a half smile.  He was wearing dark slacks and a dark maroon shirt that shimmered just a bit in the fluorescent lights.

“Rawr,” mumbled Melanie, the clerk next to Carrie.  “I'll take two and don't call me in the morning.”

Carrie giggled.  Melanie was known as the “flirt clerk” because she often flirted with the more handsome customers.  She would have been an assistant manager long ago if not for the habit.

As Carrie and Melanie worked through customers, every few moments Carrie looked up at the man and caught him staring at her.  When he saw her, he smiled.  It wasn't a leering smile, but it was something beyond just a casual smile.  Carrie started to steel herself.  If she timed her work right she could make him go to Melanie and wouldn't have to deflect him.

When he was next in line Carrie turned to glance at Melanie.  She was doing an international shipment.  There was no way she could avoid this man.  So she finished up her customer and looked up with the plastic smile she had managed to perfect over the years.

“Next,” she said.

As the man moved toward her there was something there that caught Carrie's attention.  He didn't seem to walk as much as glide.

“How can I help you?” she asked in her most wooden voice, doing her best not to look at him.

When there was no response for several seconds Carrie looked up.  He was looking intently at her with that smile on his face.  Carrie wouldn't have called him gorgeous.  She had seen seen several men more attractive.  She'd even been on daytime dates with some of them.  But there was something about him that made him more than just handsome.

“That's better,” he said.  His voice was smooth but not deep, like clear honey.  “I always hate talking to the top of someone's head.”

Carrie bit back the apology she was about to offer and tried to make her face look like a doll's, complete with silly smile.  His smile never flickered.

“I'd like to send this package,” he said.

“You've come to the right place,” Carrie retorted, unable to hold back the sarcastic reply.

He let out a short laugh.

“I knew there was a personality in there,” he said lightly.  “Your eyes are far too intelligent for anything else.”

Carrie found herself looking at the man.  Something stirred within her.  Something that had nothing to do with a handsome face smiling at her.

“You have gold flecks in your eyes,” he said, his voice dropping just a little so Melanie couldn't hear.  “That's beautifully unusual.”

Carrie hadn't looked at her eyes in a long time.  She had to think back to her freshman year of college when someone had last told her about her eyes.  They were light brown, almost golden in the sunlight, and they did indeed have flecks of gold in them.  How long had it been since someone had been close enough to notice?  And then she looked at his.  They were identical.  She couldn't hold back a gasp of surprise.

“Strange coincidence, huh?” he asked.

Carrie felt it was anything but a coincidence.  This man being here, looking at her, had to be purposeful.  There had to be a link.  If there was, she couldn't immediately place it.  She had been an only child.  Was he a distant relative who had somehow managed to track her down?

“Yeah,” Carrie replied absently.

There was a silence that lasted about two seconds too long.  With what appeared to be a little effort the man unlocked eyes and looked down at the box on the counter.

“Anyway,” he began, his voice back to smooth honey, “I need to send this.  But I want to set up an account.  I just opened a business nearby and I'm going to be sending things all over the place.”

Like her mind, Carrie thought.  All she could focus on was that he was near and would be coming in often.

“Is there some paperwork I need to fill out?” he asked, his smile turned up a notch or two on the brightness scale.

Carrie had to shake herself to come back down to earth.

“Huh?  Oh yeah, yes.  I'll meet you over at the middle desk,” she said, pointing to a row of three desks off to the side with privacy panels.  “It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to get you set up.”

“That'd be great,” he replied.

Carrie memorized every detail as she went through the paperwork.  His name was Samuel Rye and his business was only a couple blocks away called Crystal Stars.  When she asked him about it, he told her it was a manufacturing business where they turned crystals and minerals into decorative objects people could hang from ceilings or in windows or whatever.  Because of the special process they used, the stars retained a little light, even in total darkness, and shined.

“They're used as guardian pendants, good luck charms, and totems,” he said, his smile dimming just a bit.  “To keep the dark away.”

Carrie shivered as he said it.

“Do they work?” Carrie found herself asking before she could stop herself.

“I haven't had any complaints,” he answered back, his smile back in full force.

By the time they had finished, it was time for Carrie to call it a week.  She took the package from Sam and told her it would be sent out this evening.  He thanked her, flashed one last smile at her, then glided out the door.

“My god,” Melanie said to Carrie as she walked back toward the counter.  “Could you have taken any longer with him?  Why didn't you just jump him right there?”

Carrie was feeling a little too light-headed to respond.  She only smiled, clocked out, and went to her car.  The drive home, even at the end of the week, seemed to fly by, and before she knew it she was at her condo complex.  She got out of her car and practically skipped up the stairs.  But her mood changed almost immediately when she got to her door.  She needed that privacy screen door this weekend.  Carrie quickly opened the door, rushed inside, and shut the door behind her.

Carrie warred with herself all weekend long.  She picked out a solid steel door at the home hardware store and had it delivered.  While she worked to get it installed she couldn't help but think of Sam.  There was no way he could be thinking anything about her.  A guy like that was bound to have his pick of women.  There was a certain confidence and aura about him that was very attractive.  Why would he go for an assistant manager at a shipping company?  Of course, he had taken a lot longer than he needed to.  He had talked to her about things totally unrelated to shipping packages.  But she couldn't get anywhere close to him.  The marks on her door were proof of that.  He would be killed.  The crystals keep the dark away.  Keep the dark away.  What did that mean?  Had it meant anything?

By the time Monday rolled around Carrie's caution had won out over her hope.  She had convinced herself that Sam was just another guy with only one thing on his mind.  And when the day had passed and she didn't see him, she was all but convinced he was a jerk.  A part of her defended him, telling her that it was unrealistic for him to send a package every day, but the other part shouted that side down.  It was a defensive response and she knew it, but what choice did she have?

Carrie arrived home and found a note on her door from the property manager.  He liked the new door and would have the wooden door repainted when she arranged for a convenient time.  And a package had been delivered for her.  Carrie went down to the office and picked up the package.  It was small and light.  When she looked at the return address she nearly dropped the package.  It was from Crystal Stars.

Carrie tried to control herself as she walked briskly back to her apartment.  When she was inside she grabbed a steak knife and cut open the package.  Inside was a small card and a box about two inches square.  Carrie pulled out the card.  It was white, glossy card stock with a single blue, eight-pointed star on the front.  She opened it.

To keep the dark away.

- Sam

Carrie stared at the card.  A hundred questions began to run through her mind.  Who was Sam?  How did he know where she lived?  What did his words mean?  Other questions flitted through her brain, so many that she had to sit down and catch her breath.  Then she reached for the smaller box inside.  It was the same glossy white color with the same blue star on top.  She opened it.  Inside was a five-pointed crystal star on a thin, flexible wire.  At first glance the crystal was clear, but as Carrie picked it up it seemed to glow with an inner light of its own.  A kaleidoscope of colors played along the arms of the star, turning from red to orange, all the way to blue and purple, then cycling back, again and again.

There was something else about the crystal as well, something more than just the changing colors.  It was as if there was something in there, something embedded in the crystal itself, that seemed comforting, soothing.  It was like...it was sort of like looking into Sam's eyes.

Carrie looked at the card again.  She turned it over.  There was another sentence on the back.

Hang it where it will get some light.

Carrie looked around her apartment.  During the day the sun would come in from the balcony and hit the kitchen.  It would mean leaving the balcony curtains open during the day again.  There was also a window in her bedroom that got plenty of light as well.  Somehow she wasn't quite ready to put something from a stranger in her bedroom.  So she went with the kitchen.  There were some magnetic hooks on her refrigerator.  She'd put things on them from time to time, but mostly they just hung empty.  So she put it there.

She would have been hard pressed to explain it, and just thinking about it made her shake her head, but Carrie would have sworn the feeling in her condo changed just for the hanging of the star.  She found herself humming as she made her small dinner.  She even caught herself laughing while watching a show on TV.  And her sleep that night was as peaceful as it had been since...since she had lost her parents.  She would have to see Sam the next day and thank him.  And get some answers.

* * * * * * *

It was about 15 minutes before her shift ended on the next day when Sam walked in.  He was wearing dark blue slacks and a royal blue dress shirt that was made of the same shimmery material as the maroon one.  Carrie was in the manager's office off to the side and didn't see him come in, but a moment later Melanie peeked her head in the door.  She had a goofy grin on her face.

“Your dreamboat's back,” she said.  “And he's looking for you.”

It took Carrie a moment to understand Melanie's comment, and then she nearly knocked the chair over she had been sitting in as she stood up so quickly.

“Down, girl,” Melanie joked.  “I don't think he's running away.”

Carrie blushed, then fought herself to appear calm as her heart rate doubled and she walked out of the office.  He was standing off to one side with a large box on the counter.  He looked at her and a large smile came to his face showing off a set of flawless teeth.  More than that, there was a warmth in that smile that made Carrie's heart skip a beat.

“H-hi,” Carrie squeaked when she got close to him.

She flushed and dropped her eyes to the counter.  She felt like such a schoolgirl!

“And hi to you too,” he said as if he hadn't heard anything.  “I hope I didn't interrupt anything.”

How he managed to sound so sincere mystified her.  She could have been taking her last breath and would have interrupted it for him.

“Nothing that can't wait,” Carrie managed, her voice back under control.

“Good,” he said.  “I was wondering if you could answer a couple questions.”

“I was wondering if you could too,” she said back, proud of herself for not letting his pretty smile get the best of her.

“Then you got it,” he replied as if she hadn't had a tone of accusation in her voice.  “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” she answered sincerely.  “Thank you.”  And then she caught herself.  “How did you know where I lived?  And what did you mean with that comment?”

He was unfazed by the first barrage of her assault and his expression never wavered.

“Those might be answers best given over dinner,” he said softly.

“I don't do dinner,” she said reflexively.

His cheery demeanor faded almost instantly.  He looked at her intently for a moment, seeming to understand more than the face value of the statement.  And was that concern hiding back there?  And then his eyes were twinkling again.

“I'll pay,” he said lightly.

A small laugh escaped from Carrie and she smiled.  His response had caught her off guard.

“I appreciate it,” she said, “but I can't.”

That was definitely concern on his face.  Not the sort of concern or discouragement she had often seen on the faces of other guys she had turned down.  This was something different.  Something almost knowing.

“There's not a burly boyfriend involved, is there?” he asked, his smile looking forced.

“No,” Carrie sighed without catching herself.

Something flashed across his face, some raw emotion, but it was gone so quickly that Carrie couldn't identify it.  Then his face seemed to relax.  He wasn't smiling, but whatever other emotions had been there before were gone.

“I'll let you think about it,” he said.  “It's probably a bit soon.  Now, about this package.”

He asked a few questions, nothing that any other clerk couldn't have answered, then left the package and walked out.  It wasn't until he was gone that Carrie realized he hadn