Page 38 of Such a Quiet Place
Mr. Monahan raised a hand to his thinning white hair, his fingers trembling as he smoothed a few flyaway strands to the side.
Tina sighed. “I better get him home soon or my mom will worry,” she said.
“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” Mr. Monahan said with a childish roll of his eyes. Tina squeezed his shoulder, then gave me a small smile as they continued toward home.
“Good night,” I called after them.
“Be careful,” her father called back.
As I continued my walk around the perimeter, I took stock of the routines of our community: Paul Wellman turning his silver sedan into his driveway, pulling straight through to the garage, the mechanical door lowering before he’d even exited the car. A couple leaving the pool at closing time, barefoot and wrapped in towels, their laughter trailing behind them.
Porch lights turning on, fragmented scenes visible through the open curtains. Flashes of television screens, the scent of burgers cooking on a grill, as I walked the road that backed to the high white fences of our patios.
When I arrived home, I debated how many more passes I really needed to do.
“All safe on the home front?” Ruby called. She seemed to be in exactly the same position on the couch.
“All clear.”
The television was tuned to the same news station, though the volume had been lowered, more for background noise than active listening. She had a book in one hand—a paperback, cover folded over so I couldn’t read the title.
I returned to my spot at the kitchen table, opening my laptop again, deciding I’d go out once more before bed. Split the night at a reasonable hour. Surely no one would complain when the person they really wanted to keep an eye on was currently inside my house. The more I was home, the more I could keep an eye on her.
At eleven, Ruby stood and stretched, turning off the television now that the main news broadcast had finished. “Well,” she said, book in hand, “good night and good luck. Wake me if you want company?” Like we had done last time, sharing our shift for extra security.
But I had become someone different, too, in the time she’d been gone. “I’m good,” I said.
She paused in front of the kitchen table, standing there until I looked up from the screen of the laptop. “Let me know who you see out there,” she said. Her eyes flicking away, like she didn’t want me to read any more into her bet. Like it mattered what I saw. That it wasn’t just a game.
I WAS LATER THANI intended. I left again just after eleven-thirty, taking a flashlight from the kitchen drawer this time. Flicking it on as soon as I closed the door behind me. At night, the stillness seemed rife with possibilities. The stifling humidity, the crickets and the frogs, the faraway sound of an animal darting into the woods, a door slamming shut inside one of the homes.
Ruby’s words echoed as I passed the Seaver house: that I wouldn’t be the only one out here. My eyes trailed to the upstairsright window—Mac’s bedroom—where I could see the warm glow of a lamp beside the closed curtains.
I was standing there, staring up, when I heard it: the sound of metal on metal. A gate opening or closing. From the direction of the pool.
I kept the flashlight trained ahead of me—maybe the couple I saw leaving on my last walkthrough, neglecting to secure the gate behind them.
But the gate was closed now. I pulled at the bars just to check, but the latch was secure, the clang of metal against metal echoing through the night. I paused with my hand on the iron rungs, listening closely. I arced the beam of my flashlight across the surface of the pool—still and quiet—and then the pool deck.
A trail of water. Footprints leading from the pool, across the white concrete, to the gate where I stood on the sidewalk, then disappearing into the black pavement of the road.
At the pool, so close to the lake, the sounds of the night became almost deafening: the lapping of the water at the roots and rocks, the wind through the leaves of the trees, the frogs no longer in the distance but here—surrounding me in the trees around the pool deck. I slapped at my leg but felt the welt of the mosquito bite already rising.
It was probably a resident at the pool, anyway. Someone with a key, even though it was technically off hours. A midnight dip. A violation of our owners’ association rules but nothing worth reporting.
Still, I shuddered, imagining all the things that could happen at night with the rest of us oblivious, behind locked doors and closed walls. I started walking faster, planning the route, keeping to the sidewalk, with the flashlight guiding the way. I wanted to be home, to be done with this. Of course there were other people out at night. It wasn’t a crime. That had been Ruby’s defense, after all.
“Hey.” A soft voice up ahead stopped me in my tracks beforeI could see anyone. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it under the sounds of the night. I scanned my flashlight to the side and stopped at the figure sitting on the top porch step. Chase stood up. “I was hoping to catch you,” he said.
But his porch light was off, and he was wearing sneakers and gym shorts and a dark T-shirt stretched tight across his shoulders. I wondered if he’d been watching me. Following me. From here, in the daylight, the pool was just barely in sight. He could’ve been out here all along.
“You’re sitting in the dark,” I said, as close to an accusation that I could get, even as I started moving again, passing his front door.
“I didn’t want you to avoid me,” he said, hand extended in my direction, palm up, case in point.
I stopped walking but didn’t get any closer.
“You need to be careful, Harper,” he said, walking down the steps.
