Spooky Story Photo Prompt 1: Just In Case

 a brief (maybe) return to the photo prompt stories. I promise to leave them up this time. LOL

*photo attribution unknown. 

was used exclusively as a prompt for this short story

So I put out a call-out for people who wanted to write spooky, creepy or just true crime style short stories in a pen-pal group I am a member of after finding the magazine Whalebone, full of huge beautiful photographs and wonderful stories, not always on the same pages! There was also a call-out in the February pen-pal group newsletter for short works of fiction (no more than 2000 words) to be featured in the upcoming editions of the newsletter, so two birds/one stone thinking and voila... four of us will round-robin exchange 4 stories, each from a prompt by a member of the group. I mail this one to Stephanie. I'll post mine here. I have no idea if/when anyone else will post their stories. If they do I'll try to include them or at least tag to them. I will get a copy of each story from a different writer, but I wont be posting those. They're not mine.

Here is a link to Stephanie's Story Doors and Corners

Draft one: 6,397 words. Yeah, that's a lot. I am also editing because midway through I decided not to tell any of the story from Bert's direct perspective or in her voice at all. Right now there's about 1/3 of the story told in her voice and I can't make the tenses flow. Well, and it's too long. I know where it ends and she's only the start of the story.

Draft two: 6,768 words. It's getting worse not better. LMAO Time to leave it alone. There may be a revision after Steph reads it and can offer suggestions. I like it, though. That's the thing of it. So I'm letting it be.

Just In Case

“A Ghost robbed us and got me put in jail.” Bert said it just like that. No preamble or change in her body language or demeanor at all. I was so surprised I actually chortled, you know, that thing where you don’t know you’re going to laugh until it sneaks out of you. “No, really,” she said, reaching for the cup of water our waitress had just left for us with our menus. “I think if we had stayed another night I’d be dead. I know Michelo would be if we hadn’t been there to save him.”

“What in the hell are you talking about? You don’t believe in ghosts.” That’s what I said. I didn’t ask about the new name. Not yet. I noticed for the first time since arriving at the little Mexican restaurant that is our most favorite spot that she looked pale and drawn, like she hadn’t slept. Certainly not like a woman who had just spent almost three weeks on the “vacation of a lifetime” in Tuscany.

Roberta, Bert to her friends, is a quiet sort who only really comes to life when she’s with close friends behind the safety of closed doors, so it’s not shocking that I didn’t immediately notice. And still. There were deeper than normal hollows under her eyes. She actually looked haunted. Her usually bright yellow eyes were dull, somehow muted like too much brown was suddenly mixed into their color and had dimmed their sparkle. And now that I was really paying attention, Bert’s hands were shaking when she handed her menu to the waitress. A shiver passed through me and I leaned forward over the table to touch her forearm as much to comfort myself as her. Bert flinched a little from my touch before relaxing again and I noticed there was a pink sort of raw look to her forearm. 

“I rehearsed this all the way home, Bri.” She said, covering my hand on her arm with her other very cold hand and I felt that shiver inside me again. “And none of it will work. I was gonna just blurt it out and now…” She looked around herself and gave a shuddery little sigh. “Maybe I’ll just start at the beginning.”

And now I’ll tell it to you, as best as I can recall it. Just in case. 

Bert and her sister Molly had found an exceptional Airbnb in an ancient Tuscan complex right near the heart of the city. It had been completely modernized and was even separated from the property at the same address that had been the main house so that the pair of them could have relative privacy at a bargain basement price. I know from photos and posts from their first few days that they were only sleeping in the residence and spent their time out and about in the city or farther out on bus tours. The first few nights had been uneventful and both women had spent blissful late evenings writing postcards and updating social media. Then new travelers took over the upper section of the rental. 

In a snoop the night before, Bert had discovered that their little renovated apartment had been the servant’s quarters for the three story domicile above them. A very narrow little staircase behind a door barely wide enough to be a cupboard tucked in next to the Ikea wardrobe they were sharing as a closet led in a turning path as steep as a ladder up to the second floor and opened into the kitchen of the upper residence. There was no lock on her side of the little door or on the little door at their level and at the upper side a simple slide lock on the equally narrow little door was all that prevented entry from the lower residence. She’d snooped a bit and was privately very glad they’d chosen the smaller and more private accommodations with direct access to the street. 

On Friday while Molly and Bert had been away learning how olives were harvested, pressed and then processed into the liquid gold we all love so much and then tasting the fruits of all those labors made into amazing foods and served with strong wine new vacationers had arrived and taken occupancy of the space above. 

Bert normally destroys a plate of ceviche like it’s fresh baked brownies. Tonight she did more artistic rearranging of the colors on her plate than she did actual eating. She spoke instead, quietly, her smoky low voice sounding so afraid that I got that weird sense of being sure I was being watched until gooseflesh popped on my neck and shoulders and I had to roll my head to warm the muscles.

Their new neighbors were noisy and the property wasn’t as soundproof as you’d surmise from the stone outside. There was so much chatter at the top of that tiny narrow staircase in a language that neither she nor Molly recognized that they almost went up to see if they could join the party and make some new friends. Still a little tipsy from their own big dinner accompanied by much wine, and a lot tired they instead settled into the little single beds tucked around the corner from that little door leading upstairs and fell asleep almost immediately.

“Now it gets weird, Bri. The part I rehearsed and rehearsed trying to find a way to make you believe me. I know you won't and honestly, I don’t care. As long as someone knows, just in case.”

“In case…?” She cut me off with a hand bedecked with her usual half dozen rings raised palm out. “Ok. Go on.” We were almost done eating and I was thinking I’d be relieved to get out from under the gentle air conditioning and soak some warmth back into my skin.

Bert was awakened in the darkness of early morning by a sound she couldn’t identify. Her first thought was that one of the revelers upstairs had found the door she’d just found the night before and was nosing around in their room. She’d challenged the unseen intruder in a rough whisper, hoping the tone would embarrass them and send them back up the stairs. There was no reply and no sound. For a long time she just lay there quiet and tried to convince herself she’d never been in the Airbnb when people were above them, perhaps someone flushed a toilet. It was nothing. 

Just as she’d begun to drift back to sleep there was a distinct sound in the room with her. Bert sat bolt upright and whispered again, this time fully awake with gooseflesh rising and aching over her body. She heard the rustling of fabric and the slight scuffing of feet skimming the low rugs as if trying to feel their way in the front of their room. Again Bert hissed a challenging epithet  into the darkness, this time actually turning and placing her feet on the rug under the narrow beds she and her sister occupied.

Nothing. Silence. The sounds she had been so certain of just a seconds before were now like ancient history. She was so focused and intent on finding even the smallest trace of the sounds that had been so clear that her sister’s questioning whisper startled her and she’d broken out of her almost trance-like fear to turn on the bedside lamp and race into the sitting come dining area that made up the front of their room. There was nothing. No one. And the narrow little door was closed. She went to it and flung it open, leaning in and listening for footfalls or sounds from above. Nothing. If the people upstairs were not sleeping, they were farther from the door now and nothing could be heard from them.

She’d quieted her nerves with some herbal tea from the little kitchen cupboard and, very importantly, she’d struggled to slide the wardrobe over a few inches so that it covered enough of the little door that anyone coming in that way would have to make a hell of a lot of noise. In moving it she was certain it had originally been where she moved it to because there were slight scuffs on the otherwise pristine pale blue new tiles. Feeling safer, they decided they’d try to sleep some more and managed it. Neither of them realized that their watches and jewelry were missing from the little catch bowls on the sideboard until they woke later that morning.

I should tell you that at this point in our story we were done eating and when Bert went to pay our bill the hostess, Veronica, took one look at her and made a sign, like when you cross yourself in church but a little different and whispered,“Obseionada.” And then actually to Bert, “What happened to you?” She asked in English, seeming to realize that her reaction was only making Bert more pale.

“I had a terrible adventure in Italy.” Bert laughed and the sound fell flat, clearly made out of reflex. “I’m home now.”

“You’re not alone.” Veronica said something low in Spanish and then laid her hand on Bert’s and her eyes went round like coins for a split second. “You need a bruja, mi querida.” The older woman clasped Bert’s hand suddenly and yanked her forward forcefully until their faces were almost touching, so that Bert’s slim body was stretched across the counter and her breasts knocked aside a little stand with gum in it and yelled, “Deja a esta chica en paz!” Now, I’m making this up from having looked it up on my phone from what I remembered. The meaning is right and it sounds right when I let the google bot read it to me. 

People all around us turned and one of the waitresses dropped a tray filled with rolled silverware and napkins and turned with a gasp. “Si, a bruja.” Veronica released Bert and snatched up a pen and wrote something down quickly on the back of our receipt, then crammed it into her hand, actually folding Bert’s fingers around it. “Andele… andele!”

Bert moved like she was in a daze. That completely assaultive thing was just sort of Another Thing That Has Happened and Bert pocketed her bank card and the receipt absently as she rubbed her wrist and turned for the door. I stood there with my mouth hanging open and blown away, I mean… I should have said something, right? Instead I just saw how scared Veronica looked and how blank Bert was and I went to follow my friend fast.

We stopped at the little cafe tables outside of a closed ice cream shop that shared space in the strip mall. Bert sighed and closed her eyes, breathing in the still warm evening air and then turned her bruised dull eyes on me.

It only got worse from the moment they discovered their missing items. Molly was so mad she wanted to move the wardrobe and go up and barge in on the people upstairs. Bert was afraid they couldn’t really prove anything and so sent an urgent email message to their hosts and suggested they take anything of value with them and go find some breakfast. By the time they’d gotten away and had some wonderful light and flavorful breakfast and dark rich coffee they felt like there was no reason to cancel their plans for the day and so an email from the hosts would settle it and they’d know what to do later.

Later they returned to their room and found that the wardrobe was pushed back away from that damnable little door, level and flush with the wall as it had been when they’d arrived in Italy and first seen their Airbnb. Their little travel clock, a gift from their mother the night before they’d come on this adventure, was missing. As was a bag of costume jewelry from the little vanity in the tiny bathroom that neither had thought was valuable enough to bring with them.

Convinced that their neighbors had done the thieving, Bert had gone right out the alley-facing door that served as the only proper entrance and exit to their little residence and stormed up the stone stairs to the residence above. In seconds it was clear that the language barrier between the two women was going to keep them from any meaningful communication. It was also clear to Bert that if the woman who’d answered the door thought anything it was that a deranged stranger had found their door and she had no idea how to make her just go. By the end of their flappy, overwrought discussion the woman was actually waving a dish towel she’d answered the door with in a shooing gesture as if warding off flying pests.

Bert had gone back down and sent another message to their hosts. Reporting that more items were missing and that the wardrobe in their room had been moved. She and Molly had moved the wardrobe fully in front of the little door so that it now rested against the little kitchen counter and called their mother, who recommended that they reach out to the police regardless of their lack of understanding of the laws and language. So at almost 9 at night they’d called the police only to spend a frustrating half an hour trying to make it clear that no, right now they were not in danger and that yes, they had been robbed. Bert, using her phone and google translate managed to make arrangements to go into the station the next day and file a complaint. 

That night falling asleep was rough, and they both slept fitfully, though finally both fell into deep sleep in the cool dark of early morning. Bert had been so asleep that at first she didn’t comprehend the hand on her shoulder that was shaking so hard. And then realization flooded over her and she sat up with a gasp, her whole body alert. 

“It does really taste like copper,” Bert told me offhandedly, eyes actually coming up to meet mine. She actually looked almost feverish and flushed and I wondered if she was still feeling cold or not. “Fear. I always thought that was made up. Turns out I’d just never actually been scared to death.”

The movement in the room was back and after being certain that they were hearing it together, Molly reached for the little lamp and flipped the switch. The sudden light temporarily blinded both women and it wouldn't have mattered. There was clearly nothing in the room. Bert leapt up like the night before and raced into the little front room, and screamed. The wardrobe had been moved back to where it had been when they’d arrived. The little door was closed and they were apparently alone in the space.

Their electronics were gone. Both the trusty laptop from college that Bert refused to replace out of sheer bloodyminded superstition (it had gotten her this far, hadn’t it?) and Molly’s brand new iPad as well as both of their phones, charging cables all still plugged into the port on the sideboard the cords just hung dejectedly like disused ropes over a cliff. Bert had flown into a rage and again had gone out their little main door, up the stairs and started banging on the upper door. This time it was answered by a man in his forties, maybe early fifties. He looked as though he’d been relaxing and not sleeping. He was also instantly hostile when Bert demanded he give her back her things.

Again the language barrier which she was about to learn was actually one French family and one Dutch who just happened to be sharing the Airbnb above theirs slammed down between them and all he got was that a crazy American was screaming at him and threatening him. He’d done the sensible thing for a man on holiday and closed the door between himself and the freaked out woman and called the police. Probably because he spoke at least a little Italian or someone there spoke Dutch or French, his call yielded a faster response. Bert was sobbing and pacing in their own little room a few minutes later when a knock on the door announced the police. Without an interpreter. And without her belongings.

“Still no word from the hosts. Nothing. And no one speaks English anymore. I am still so frustrated that we thought we could just rely on our phones. How dumb is that? Dream vacation and I don’t bother to try to do some speed learning course online because everyone speaks at least a little English and we have our phones and…” Bert trailed off and snorted a little dismissively. She sounded a little hysterical and my own heart was beating fast because regardless of anything about ghosts, my friends had been tormented and robbed! And then the police weren’t helping them!

So after being forced to go down to the station and then some long hours later an officer who did speak English arrived and was able to sort out their stories and provided Bert with a computer where she accessed her email account and showed them that she’d been in contact already twice with their hosts and still had no reply. 

Bert and Molly were told that the people in the residence above theirs denied knowing anything about their belongings and that until being advised by the police had not even tried looking in what they’d dismissed as a cleaning closet. After learning about it they understandably assured the police that they would slide the lock and also apologized to the young women for their misfortune, repeating that no one in their residence would have taken anything from either of them.

The officer had actually graciously allowed Bert to call her mother and arrange to meet online at a cafe not far away from the station in order to figure out their plan of action. Molly had planned a three day trip for the pair of them and they both decided after being filled with their mother’s bright optimism that it was important not to let their bizarre circumstances deflate their holiday. So with a wire of some money to the bus station around the corner and the whole rest of that day spent finding new very basic android phones on a local provider equivalent to Cricket that cheerfully provided almost nothing in the way of internet or call minutes or texting for extraordinary prices to visitors who happened to need phones, they went out for dinner, assured their mother that they would be in touch again on their way out to enjoy a three day hop through different vineyards.

For three days they again enjoyed the dream experiences they’d planned from their holiday. They met fun and interesting people, had the sorts of adventures that helped ease the fear and violation of their past few days and Molly even met a Zambian man going to school in England and having a holiday in Italy with his university roommates. She was really interested and had exchanged details with him, explaining that their current phones limited her abilities and that she’d be in touch as soon as she returned home to the US. The very tall, slender dark skinned Michelo had been dismayed by their stories, and as a law student who spoke some Italian and spoke English fluently had even offered to come and help them with the police. At her resistance he said he would settle with receiving a call or text from Molly every day until she could get back home and actually access the internet in more meaningful ways.

“When we got back I started to realize just walking up the stairs that the whole place felt wrong to me now, and Molly was clearly not as happy to get back as we had been when we first saw the cute little place we had gotten for such a steal because we wanted it for three weeks and the hosts were new to Airbnb and…” She laughed and there was just a little glimmer of the Bert I know and have loved since the first weeks of college when we met in the library. I took her hand in mine and she didn’t tense up and her skin didn’t feel quite as cold. She was shaking though, like shivering even in the warmth.

They’d gone into their room and unpacked their bags, taking a silent inventory of everything they’d left behind. It all actually appeared untouched. Their suitcases were still stowed, even the useless electrical cords still dangled over the edge of the sideboard, sad and permanently disused. The wardrobe was no longer blocking the door, though. Together they’d moved the wardrobe to fully conceal the narrow door and then searched the room for a way to prevent it from being moved again. The sideboard and counters were attached to the walls, the chairs were light little things that had probably been put together from a flat packed delivery and the little settee wouldn’t fit in anything other than a wobbling standing position leaning drunkenly into the remaining space, so they decided they would sleep in shifts with the lamp in the sitting room left on.

And nothing happened. At least, nothing in their little apartment. 

Somewhere near dawn Bert, who had taken the second shift, dozed off sitting up in the little settee and was awakened by hard pounding on their door. She’d stumbled to open it and had hesitated second guessing the idea of throwing open the door that didn’t have a window or peep hole and the next flurry of angry pounding on the door actually made her jump and shout. She’d yelled through the door to know who it was and angry French or maybe Dutch flurried through the wood. It was the woman she’d yelled at the first night, the pretty one that had tried to shoo her away like a bothersome fly.

Their neighbors had now been robbed and thought Bert and Molly had done the deed. Another trip to the police and another long wait for the one officer who seemed able to actually interpret between the two groups of individuals and finally the story became clear. Over the past few days the neighbors upstairs had been hearing people coming and going from their rental at night and every time little things were missing. Now everyone was missing their phones and it seemed just too perfect that the girls downstairs had just made similar reports. It took a lot of proving and Bert and Molly were able to demonstrate that they’d been outside of town and unable to do the robbing, even if they’d wanted to.

Then the accusations of leaving the door unlocked or losing keys began and on and on. Bert had been threatened by the officer who had previously been so kind to her when she’d lost her temper and accused the Dutch woman of lying when she identified one of the rings Bert wore as one of her own. Bert was able to show a photo from Facebook that clearly predated her trip to Italy and showed the ring but her anger and instant physical reaction to being grabbed by the other woman had left the police with a negative impression anyway.

They’d called their mother and agreed to take their last two-day trip and then come home early. They’d posted on social media that they’d be home a little sooner and she and I had agreed to have a dinner meeting, the one we were sharing now, to catch up and hear her “really weird story.” A few hours later she’d actually emailed me her flight and arrival information with a quick cryptic note that maybe vacation’s of a lifetime should just stay on vision boards.

Molly had wanted to just call defeat and clear out their room and rent a hotel room somewhere nearby. Bert had done some quick research and learned that there was nothing available until the next day and booked a room for them for three days’ later instead, since their upcoming two-day trip included stays at different hostels. Their last night in Italy would be spent in the city conveniently very near the airport and had regular shuttle service. It would be a blissfully short ride to the airport and to their only shared flight to Amsterdam before the pair would be separated by transatlantic flights that would land half a continent apart and they would be returned to their own lives.

That night neither of them could manage to relax enough to sleep and they’d then accidentally fallen asleep curled tightly together on the settee with the sitting room lamp on. Sometime in the early morning hours they both woke to a sound that neither could identify. Molly at first forgot their situation and gave a little giggle, “Oh man, that’s no way to sleep, sister. My butt…” She cut off, eyes going wide and mouth falling open.

Bert leapt to her feet and picked up the only thing in the room that looked like a logical weapon, brandishing the little table lamp in front of her, accidentally unplugging it with a pop and a little spark near the wall, plunging them into pitch darkness and setting Molly into a shriek. 

“The damned wardrobe had been moved and this time the little door was standing open, swinging slightly. And then damn dark because I’m a fucking moron and grabbed the lamp and unplugged it. I heard Molly leap away towards the little bedroom area and heard her crashing and then the light there came on. There was nothing in the room. Our fucking phones were gone, that door was open and there was no one in the room again. I was so scared I was freezing all over me.”

Bert admitted going a little loopy then. She’d run through that narrow little door and up the steep stairs without any mind to what she was doing and crashed through the one at the top like a fireman, the little lock had been in the hasp so it clattered across the room when everything splintered apart. She was screaming and demanding to know where her phone was and when the police arrived she was threatened with having to go to the hospital if she didn’t confess to the drugs she had taken.

Upstairs the residents had also all been robbed again. This time money was missing from their wallets, though credit cards had been left behind. Their own replacement phones were also missing. As were some of their other belongings. In all it seemed to Bert in hindsight that they’d all lost a lot more actual money than she and Molly had. Bert also struggled to explain over and over that the door at the bottom of the stairs in her residence had been standing open, the only way for the lock upstairs to be thrown was if someone there had taken their things and locked it behind them. There had been a few seconds while Molly stumbled around in the dark to turn on the light after she accidentally unplugged the one in the sitting room. That was more than enough time for them to all be up here pretending to be sleeping.

By the end the officers were so frustrated and unwilling to listen that they didn’t bother to find the only officer who understood her and instead placed Bert under arrest for assault and property damage and she would stay in jail without even a call all of that day and overnight before an unexpected hero would save her.

The handsome and ready to be dashing Michelo arrived only hours after Molly called him in tears and told him what had happened. They’d had flatbread pizzas and he’d stayed the night in the police waiting area with Molly until morning, going out and finding them good coffees and pastries as soon as they were to be had. And then he championed their cause and had gotten Bert released on her own recognisance. They were stuck. They’d missed their last outing, didn’t have a room at the other hotel until the next night and so the trio decided that with Michelo there to help them they could make it one more night in the weird little place they’d rented.

On the way up the narrow alley Michelo was impressed by the location, explaining that they’d actually chosen a very nice part of town. It had housed lower aristocracy in medieval times and again at other times through history. Famous artists and courtesans through time had lived in these gorgeous homes built into a natural and defensible block. A very fashionable district. Bert and Molly had listened numbly. They were no longer impressed.

They’d had to replace the wardrobe in front of the little door and Michelo noted how heavy it was for such a light looking piece of furniture. He was impressed and perhaps even a little dubious of their insistence that it had been moved every single time they weren’t watching it for any period of time and that they hadn’t heard it being shifted on the smooth tile because the wood was clearly marking the tiles and made noise when he moved it.

That night was long and all the lights were on. Upstairs none of the joyous noises came down the stairs. And perhaps lulled by the idea that the women had just made themselves hysterical after being robbed because that wardrobe was so heavy, Michelo fell asleep on the little settee while Bert and Molly slept coiled tightly together on the same single bed, holding hands.

Bert had wakened to the sounds of men thrashing and grunting and knocking over the little table next to the settee as it also overturned. In the well-lighted room Michelo looked like a man miming or playacting someone being strangled, because he was entirely alone and thrashing a full foot off the ground fighting for his life. 

Bert noted that his eyes were bulging and white foamy spittle was spraying from his lips in the same instant that Molly bolted from the bed with a scream and freed her from the tight space against the wall. Both women raced forward and screamed and screamed. Bert couldn't see anything to fight. There was nothing to grab or pull away from Michelo so Bert did the next best thing and grabbed the slender man herself, grabbing his arm and pulling him back and away from the front of the apartment and their open front door, bare feet first bunching up the rug they all stood on and then barely making purchase on the smooth light blue tiles. 

Screaming and panting and then screaming again, she was freezing and her skin burned like it was on fire and she continued to pull and pull and drag Michelo back towards the beds. Slide a little forward, dig the balls of her bare feet into the tile and pull with loud grunting cries. Suddenly her vision flashed like a flashbulb had gone off in her face and there was no resistance and the pair of them flew into the room, crashing to opposite sides of the little dividing wall separating the kitchenette from the sleep space. The taller heavier Michelo rebounded off of the counter with a crack that would mean repairs were necessary and Bert flew back onto the little bed on the other side of the wall with a hard harumph and a sudden weightlessness before the bed collapsed under her, dumping her sideways into the space between them painfully. She still bore the weird pink marks on her hands and arms from the burning and assured me there were bruises all over her backside and hip, documented later in the ER.

In the front room Molly was still screaming and collapsed to the ground to crawl towards them. The alley door was still standing wide open, screen hanging against the outside wall, inner door against the inside one. The little door by the wardrobe was closed behind the unmoved Ikea wardrobe. 

Molly had reached her sister and the pair of them, sobbing in messy heaving snotty bubbles and gasps made their combined way to Michelo who had collapsed to the floor under the counter and was sitting gasping and rubbing his neck, eyes wide and skin ashen gray. Little red flecks surrounded the whites of his eyes where he’d broken blood vessels in his desperate fight to breathe. 

There was no deciding to do anything. They gathered their belongings roughly into their suitcases. They no longer cared about the property, calling the police or informing the hosts who had still not contacted them back. Michelo couldn’t breath and was sounding worse and worse the longer they took. There was blood in the phlegm he coughed up and so they went to a cab stand and to the hospital.

Their friend’s larynx had been damaged. The pressure to his throat had been so great they were told by ER docs that it had bruised his hyoid bone and that he had to be kept for a couple of days to make sure he had no lasting complications. Michelo had already arranged to have a friend come and get him in a couple of days and get him back to England where he would have classes beginning again soon.

While they’d been in the hospital the nurses pointed out that Bert’s body temperature was erratic. Too low then rising to normal and then too low. The doctor had chalked it up to shock and had almost insisted that Bert and Molly had to stay for more observation. Michelo to the rescue once more. He had explained to the doctors that both women would be back at home the next day and both Bert and Molly had promised to seek medical treatment at home. 

The weirdest thing of all was that the English speaking police officer from the station near their doomed Airbnb had been waiting at their check-in counter at the airport. He’d been very hostile and informed them that he’d found their supposedly stolen items in an electrical panel just a few meters from the front door of their vacation rental. He was threatening arrest for damages to the property, for destruction of the special coded lock on the access panel that belonged “to the people of this fine city” and a number of other charges. He insisted that they had to accompany him back to the station and identify their belongings and explain how they’d been just a few meters away. 

Whether the airline personnel were actually empathetic to the clearly traumatized women or just wanted everything Out Of The Ordinary to go away, they intermediated and explained to Molly and Bert that unless there were formal charges the women could leave the country. Bert and Molly agreed they wanted only to leave and left via a staff only route behind the counter, being led by a very quiet woman who kept her eyes downcast and just pointed which way to the terminal before hurrying back the way they’d come without a look or glance over her shoulder at them.

“And now Veronica thinks I need a witch. I don’t know what she yelled at me, but I know she was terrified when she looked at me, it hurt me when she yanked me forward like she didn’t give a shit about me at all and she told me to hurry hurry to a witch.” Bert pulled the paper from her pocket and handed it to me. “I’m gonna need google translate for this, but the number is clear enough. I can make out passenger and she said this one obseionada when she first looked at me.” 

I looked and wow, she was right. There looked to be two whole sentences on the paper in Spanish and a name, Lisa along with a number. Pasajero was the word I thought Bert might be right about meaning passenger. And I could see that obseionada looked like the word Veronica had whispered. It didn’t make any sense so I handed the crumpled slip of paper back to her and she slipped it back into her pocket.

“Right now I just want to go home and sleep. Neither one of us slept on the way to Amsterdam, and I got not a wink waiting for my connecting flight. I kind of faded, I think, between there and here. I don’t really know. I don’t remember being awake or actually sleeping. I was just so damned cold.” Beca reached out for a hug. “I just really wanted you to know, just in case they decide I’m batshit when I go to the hospital tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you shouldn’t just go now?” I was so spooked and so worried that all I could think was that I didn’t want her to be alone. I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone.

“No. I really want to sleep. My bed. My home. Safe, quiet, darkness that I know every inch of.”

It was literally across a street and around a little curved drive to get to the place where I’d left my car in the space in front of her condo. “Do you want me to stay?” I dried my sweaty palms on my thighs and reached to hug her one more time.

Bert actually hesitated. She leaned into our hug and really thought about it and then there was this serious sadness in her eyes as she pulled back and away. “No, I just want to be alone. I’ll sleep on the couch, right near the door. With my shoes on. I’ll have my phone. Molly should be home already, so once mom is done getting all the details out of her I imagine I’ll be on the phone all night anyway.” And she uncharacteristically hugged me again, hard. Right there on the sidewalk just a few feet from my used little amigo, a hand-me-down from my mother when we’d graduated a few years before.

I stood there and watched her go the twenty feet or so to her own front door where a light was already on inside, waiting for her. I bet she didn’t turn that off after I pulled away with her silhouetted in the window waving until I rounded the corner. 

I just told you all of this just in case. Because when I found my friend strangled to death the next morning after her hysterical mother woke me up out of a sound sleep because she couldn’t reach her my grief was so great that it was like a flash of light in my head. 

I had to let myself in with my own key. I didn’t call for help or get anyone to go with me. Bert was still wearing the jeans and tank top she’d had on the night before. She was on the floor right in front of the window where I’d seen her last waving goodbye to me. I just kind of collapsed beside her and put my head on her chest and it was so damned cold. Her bank card and the receipt were in her pocket, so I took the receipt. I called the police from my phone. I think they called Bert’s mom. I don’t remember. I don’t remember much. I know one of Bert’s neighbors drove my Amigo home and had an uber waiting at my curb when we got there.

I’ve been so shocked and bereaved over the past couple of days that I hadn’t really noticed how the hot and cold keep cycling through me until this morning when my roommate’s phone was missing. Mine was gone yesterday, I thought maybe I left it on the floor in Bert’s condo, or maybe it was on the floor of the Amigo. Now I’m just really scared and tired. 

I googled the words on the note to Lisa that I took from Bert’s pocket. It says, “My friend has a terrible passenger. I have never seen a haunting like this.” I’ll call Lisa in the morning as soon as it’s light out. I just have to make it until then without sleeping.

And now you know… just in case.