Halloween I.F. – “Going Dark” – Day 5

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There wasn’t much more to keep Fern outside, though they spared a moment for a last safety check on a few things. They circled a little further to double check the furnace exhaust vent; the last thing they needed, under the circumstances, was to risk carbon monoxide poisoning. But the exit vent was clear.

Beyond that, they absently checked for trees with branches too close to the windows—they had enough nightmares that they would prefer to know the source of any unusual noises. But nothing was near any of the second-floor windows. The closest tree was the spiked pine, and that still didn’t touch the house itself. A few shrubs did come perilously close to the sitting room window, but that shouldn’t be audible from the bedroom.

So if there were any scratching on glass at night it’d be an actual horror movie scenario, Fern concluded with masochistic pleasure. Nice. 

Laughing softly at themself, they headed back indoors. There wasn’t much more to do outside, not in the late afternoon. They didn’t want to be one of those people who fell down an abandoned well, so no checking that unless there was a reason to; besides, glancing down it earlier hadn’t shown anything but darkness below. And actually removing that railway spike seemed like… well, perhaps it would be a kindness, but it might also harm the tree further after so much time of growing around it. Besides, that kind of thing might need proper tools.

There might be some of those in the basement, mind, maybe near the hammer. They considered going to get that after dinner to have next to their bed, in case they needed a weapon, but… It felt like they were over-preparing for trouble when they were supposed to be embracing a quiet and restorative stay in the woods. Besides, that’d send them past that mirror again, and while they didn’t intend to break it—property damage should probably at least have provocation they could point to when their family brought up the bill later—they didn’t love thinking about seeing it at night.

It was beginning to feel like they were putting off caring for themselves in favor of flights of paranoid fancy, which was enough of a historical trend that Fern was immediately annoyed at themself. They stomped inside. Imagine if Trev wrote back to just ask if they’d eaten dinner yet or if they were busy jumping at ghosts? They checked their phone. No reply.

Not like it was exactly a surprise—the signal would be bad in both directions, and Trev was already bad at answering texts in a timely fashion. It was one of Fern’s favorite things about him, because it had been so symbolic of what Fern had hated about dating him. A great excuse Fern could give themselves about the many reasons they’d broken up. Then again, they were fairly sure one of Trev’s personal reasons for the mutual breakup was how Fern always braced themselves for things to go wrong when everything was actually fine. It tended, Trev had pointed out before, to cause problems in itself.

So it was whatever. They could be normal about things. No more spiralling rabbit holes at least for the rest of the day, they decided; nothing would happen on this totally normal writing retreat and everything would be quiet and boring. No doomering. No preemptive worrying. No making extensive notes of what they’d seen so far to overanalyze it, because nothing had happened except them reading too much into locked rooms and cellars and mirrors.

They began rooting around in the kitchen, digging up some pots and pans—they looked clean but Fern washed them out regardless—and getting the water on to boil. It was a gas stove; they reminded themself to check that the burners were off when they finished and then reminded themself again immediately to still do that but be normal about it.

They pulled out the country sausage from the fridge and chopped it, tossing it into the pan; yeah, a nice sausage spaghetti with butter sauce would be just the thing for a special treat. They’d throw in some frozen spinach and edamame, which would probably make it officially healthy, even.

Opening the cupboard to grab the box of pasta also brought them face to face with the radio again. Sure, they decided, why not? It’d pass the time while the food boiled.

They knocked some pasta into the pot, then fiddled with the dials on the radio. They hadn’t really used one of these old radios before, but they were pretty sure what was happening wasn’t the expected experience. Most of the stations seemed only to give out static, and whenever they found one that wasn’t, it was a calmly robotic female voice reciting numbers: 02-20-17-18-04-03-02-20-17….

They were about to give up on it when their next click’s set of numbers was in a more human voice, low and masculine and smooth, with a flow between each numeral. Those numbers abruptly switched to actual speech after a moment:

“…1682. Listeners, it’d be so lovely to reach you on the airways. I can’t wait to get to know you. If you want some company out there in cottage country, look no further than your own radio. I’m sure we’ll make a real connection. Again, you can reach me now at—” and then a series of numbers that Fern realized was actually a phone number, ending, yes, in 1682.

It’d be pretty wild to call in, but they did have time to kill. On the other hand, maybe it was better to just let the program play out and listen to who else might chat with the host; it wasn’t like Fern knew what the show was about. They had other things they could do tonight instead, to be fair; perhaps they should just turn it off and figure out their after-dinner plans?

[Comment below with a suggestion for Fern

BTW: Ftr! If/when Fern resists a suggestion, this is NOT me as the author
saying it’s a bad suggestion! Instead, it’s either a way to a. note that the
conditions for it haven’t been met or b. teach you more about Fern (and their conditions)
So feel free always to make suggestions that they might resist to get info that way!]

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