The locket

The floor was clean the first time I visited; the polished wood gleaming with new wax. I waited in the doorway for the telltale sound of footsteps, waited for someone to realize I was there and come to chase me away. When no one came, I moved further into the house. The walls were light and cheerful, or they would have been were it not for the gloominess of an empty house. The curtains were drawn tightly over the large glass windows that lined the dining room walls. Just the kind of place you’d see in a magazine. I tiptoed through the house, my flashlight beam bouncing over the old wood furniture and the dusty paintings hung around the rooms.

As I slid open the living room door , I saw her sitting in the rocking chair. A startled scream fell from my lips and I stared at her wizened face. She didn’t move but I could feel her eyes on me. I walked toward her slowly, waiting for her to rise from her throne. She never moved. Her hands rested on the arms of the chair and in one she held an open locket. The light from my flashlight cast heart shaped reflections that disappeared into the shadows around her.

I would have moved her or tried to help but a quick examination with my flashlight showed her feet, stuck sweetly as they were into small pink slippers, had the Pallor. Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her.”

I backed up and sighed. “I’m sorry. I wish I could do something for you…” I whispered and left the room. I pulled the door shut behind me and blinked away the tears that had started forming in my eyes. I found the kitchen and took what I’d come for.

The next time I came, everything was less clean, less…homely. The floor was still shiny as the light hit it. I stood outside the door to the living room and listened. There was no sound inside. I reached for the door but froze. I couldn’t bear to see her again. I backed up without touching the door and made my way to the kitchen again. I filled my backpack with cans and spared only a second’s thought about why the woman had so many extra supplies in her pantry.

I returned to old Victorian to raid the pantry again. I told myself it had nothing to do with the old lady’s eyes showing up every time I closed my own. Curiosity got the best of me. I stopped in the hallway to look for some clue as to who she was, aside from an unfortunate victim of an awful catastrophe. I rifled through the stack of unopened letters that sat on a small end table near the door. Marie Cossler. I found no other name in the mail and it seemed the woman had lived alone. I moved through the dark rooms, looking closer at the paintings. Beautiful. Someone should put them in a museum instead of leaving them in this living mausoleum.

A glass cabinet held tiny, exquisite teacups and I spent some time staring at them. I groaned and knew I was only procrastinating what I’d come to do. I forced myself to walk to the door and slowly pushed it open. She was still in the chair. She hadn’t moved an inch; not that I’d expected her to. The Pallor might seem to spread slowly, but once you were infected you were done for. No one knew what to do to help the infected. We shut them away and pretended they didn’t exist. Out of sight, out of mind. None of us knew if they were even still alive once their skin began to harden and take on the sickly color of the Pallor. I stared at her for a moment, the light of the flashlight showing the small patches on her arms where the blood vessels had burst and small patterns of red and blue dotted her almost translucent skin. I swung the light beam down further and saw that the Pallor had spread past her knees.

“Oh, Marie,” I said softly, my eyes tearing up again. I bit my lip and made a decision. I walked over and opened the curtain, letting light into the room. The room lit up from the sunlight and the heart shaped locket in her hand reflected rings again. Next to Marie was a small stand and the gold lettering on the cover caught my eye. I moved to it and picked it up. The Book of Mormon. Well, that explains the food in the pantry. I looked up at the woman and then back to the book in my hand. “Marie, I don’t know if you are even still alive but there’s a chance…You’re not all gray, anyway. Not yet…” I moved and sat in the chair next to her and started reading from the first page.

Each time I returned to the old Victorian, the beauty was fading. Dust covered more surfaces and the floor shined less and less. Windows that had once been crystal and beautiful were shattered. The Pallor had spread; it now covered Marie’s chest and parts of her face but it still felt like her eyes followed me as I took my place beside her. The stack of books had grown on the little stand. I picked one up and started to read, my voice echoing in the emptiness of the house.

I pushed open the door and froze again. The paintings that had so proudly hung on the walls were gone, faded rectangles in their places. The door to the china cabinet hung at an strange angle, barely attached to the frame; each of the exquisite cups ground beneath an unknown heel. Pieces of broken pottery led to the kitchen. The table had been turned over and the dishes from the cupboards had been pulled carelessly from their shelves. The pantry was bare.

It was still and quiet the last time I approached the living room and the old woman in the rocking chair. As the sunlight fell on her body, the usual flash of light didn’t appear. Her body was all a chalky gray and the veins I’d always been able to see were gone. There was no one here and when I gazed at her, even her eyes had clouded over. On the floor lay the locket she’d so desperately clung to in all the times I’d been here. I knelt and picked it up. A heart shaped space remained. I turned and walked from the room, leaving a trail of footprints in the dust.