Ok, Ok, alright, so my girlfriend's friend's aunt, you know her? She was the one, that one lady they found in that house four days after the fact, you know, the one that was lying in her bed when her husband came home from a business trip, with her heart stopped and all? Yeah, yeah, that big house down off College and 14th, the one with the big yard and the big tree, you know. Yeah, I know, I know what they said in the paper, a scientific mystery, her heart stopped and all, no reason for it or anything like that, yeah yeah yeah... but I know the real deal about it, man. Trust me, I know what really happened that night.

So the lady, her name was Carol, remember? Well she worked a lot, just like her husband did, and they made a lot of money and see that's why they had that big house, kind of far away from everyone else. But anyway, they both worked a lot so they both spent a lot of time away from each other on business trips and stuff like that. Carol's husband, he worked more and he was away from the house a lot more than she was. What was his name? I don't remember, it doesn't matter anyway. So they worked a lot and didn't have any kids and Carol, she was used to spending the night alone in that big house like she always did anyway.

Well anyway, that night, the night I'm talking about, she was alone again, as usual, and she was downstairs in her living room. It was cold that night, you remember?, so she decided to have a fire to keep her warm and to keep her company. When she was done sitting in front of the fire daydreaming about her job, she decided to go upstairs and go to bed. She didn't put the fire out because by then it had been reduced to little pulsating embers in the fireplace. So she turned off all the lights and went upstairs to her bedroom. After she changed into her nightgown she went over and started to get in to bed. Just as she was about to pull the covers back she stopped because something struck her as being oddly out of place. She stood there and listened, and didn't hear anything, not even a little creak, which she thought was quite unusual. See, she was so used to spending the night alone in that house that she was used to hearing the house creak and moan and settle down for the night along with her, and when she didn't hear the house make any noises she began to wonder. She didn't even hear the dead-leaf rustle of the embers she left burning in the fireplace.

So as she was standing there by her bed listening to herself breath and nothing more, and all of a sudden she heard footsteps coming from upstairs in the attic. The footsteps walked from one end of the attic, the side that had the small circular window on it, to the other, the end that was directly above her bedroom. After the footsteps stopped she heard whatever was up there begin to open and close what sounded like boxes. Carol stood motionless by her bed, frightened at first, but then, because she was a rational person who thought of personal loss or gain over everything else, she wondered what could be stolen from the attic that would be worth anything to pawn. As she thought of what was kept in the attic she realized that it was only a bunch of sentimental garbage that wouldn't be worth the effort of climbing up and breaking into the attic.

So, being not only rational but also naively invulnerable, she went and got the gun that her husband kept in the sock drawer and the flashlight from his underwear drawer, and began to walk towards the attic. She approached the trapdoor, pulled it down quickly without thinking too far ahead, and yelled up a warning of her coming to the intruder above. After she yelled she heard no footsteps or movement at all, and so she climbed the stairs and kept her flashlight and her gun pointed towards the direction of the footsteps.  No one was there, and as soon as she saw this she swung the flashlight around the rest of the attic like a searchlight pans an abandoned building. She didn't see anyone in the attic, but she was an arrogant girl and she KNEW that she heard footsteps, so she started to search the attic more thoroughly.

In the dark she stumbled over a tricycle that she used to ride when she was younger, but in her pursuit paid no attention to it and kept searching the attic. As she came closer to the spot where the intruder's footsteps had stopped, she noticed that many boxes had been opened. She approached them quickly, her curiosity dominating her caution, and saw that the boxes that contained her business records of all the coworkers she kept an eye on to be sure they didn't undercut her at the office had disappeared. All that remained in the boxes were the dusty old photo albums lying forgotten and yellow, upon which she had once placed the records.

So Carol was standing there confused and staring at the albums when she heard more footsteps, this time coming from downstairs. Because she had the gun and the flashlight and the confidence from successfully searching the attic, she rushed down the stairs in the direction of the footsteps. Once downstairs she noticed that the footsteps were coming from the study, and that whatever was in there was opening drawers and rifling through something. Carol's curiosity heightened as she wondered how this person could have gotten from the attic to the study without her noticing. When she got to the study she threw open the door and turned on the light and pointed her gun into her room without giving her time to doubt herself. The room was empty, and all the drawers were open, with files and folders strewn all about. She walked in, forgetting caution again, and looked down at the drawers. All of her checks, bankbooks, and ledgers were gone. Carol looked around the room, thinking of her intruder. Could it be someone from the office trying to undercut her? Someone she had missed in her meticulous recording of all those suspect enough to be considered, in her laboring hour after hour midnight office sessions beyond all conceivable lonely overtime work? She looked blankly ahead, her mind elsewhere, not realizing that she was staring directly at the old dusty picture of an old man that she once knew, that she once spent hours smiling at. From the study as she stood, pondering, more footsteps came, this time coming from the living room downstairs. Confident that her intruder was just another button-down steady aim partner, she rushed out of the study and into the dark hallway.

From the living room she could hear the sound of pages being torn, being thrown into some breathing pile. The stairs were dark but her flashlight was still jumping across the walls. As she came upon the living room her flashlight went dead. The room was completely dark. The shutters were drawn, and the red embers of the exhausted fires had faded into the shadows of the fireplace. No light from behind her came through the doorway. Just then, just then as Carol stood silently in the doorway, she first began to lose her breath to fear. She stared before her into the darkness, with all sound stopping as soon as she reached the doorway, her trembling hand holding her shaky gun in front of her. She could smell burnt paper drifting to her from afar, burnt paper and another smell that she couldn't discern. Carol wanted to scream out at whoever was in the room from the doorway, but she knew it wouldn't do any good. The house was too big, the neighbors too far away and too apathetic, and she was too alone.

Carol took her first step into the dark room, her feet shaking so furiously from the fear that she could barely keep herself balanced. Her eyes trembled on the verge of tears, and her breath began to come in gasps, but she could find no actual sobs anymore. She desperately wanted to hold someone's hand. Carol took many deep breaths and tried her best to keep her heart from beating so hard it burst from her chest, and she cursed her husband for being away in Bangkok, for being away so many nights and buying his way back in with authentic slippers or rugs. And although she cursed him, she also wanted him there, she wanted to feel his hand again, she wanted to hear him whisper a little chuckle like he used to do when she tried to tell a joke, she wanted him there standing by her side more than anything else in the world, more than she wanted the lights to come on, more than she wanted the shutters to be thrown open, more than she wanted the sun to rise.

Carol then took another trembling step. She began thinking about a time when she was young, younger than any of the pictures of her hanging sparsely through out the house were, when she went out with Alice from down the street, out past the baseball field on their bikes to the small pond with all the lilies resting on it, where they sat and told each other how strong the lilies looked and how they could probably walk on top of them all the way across the water. Alice from down the street, Alice now from somewhere unknown, and Carol thought about that small Alice with the pink bow and how much she wanted that small Alice by her side in the unbearable silent darkness just then, just then as she took her second trembling step. Alice with those small hands wiping away the weak tears that finally, pathetically leaked out of her eyes as she stood in the darkness, with those small hands holding Carol's own as they trembled uncontrollably at her sides.

It only took her three steps. She knew then what had been burned in the fireplace. She knew what she kept and what she had turned away from. The weight of a sudden rolling awakening of all that she had denied and worked hard to forget brought forth great liberating sobs that frightened her in their heaving intensity. Blue spots blossomed in front of her, her hands could no longer move and lay at her sides.  No muscle clenched in her body and she felt satin wash over her completely. The walls faded away, the shutters opened up and instead of the light that she once wished for, she saw exactly what she now expected: more darkness that hid every silhouette in every empty room away from any sort of light. The gun was gone, all of her furniture, her files, her wardrobe, her briefcase, they all faded back. Carol stopped thinking of who she wanted to be there with her, she stopped thinking of anything but herself from the farthest point inside herself, by her side that was no longer her side, she was swept away past the floor and the grain by the loneliest sliding feeling.