The Presence

THE PRESENCE

by: Samuel Earl Di Gangi

1

The walls shook.

That took some real work because the walls of this old duplex were quite solid but just the same, they shook. The sound of breaking furniture, shattering glass, and angry voices penetrated the calmness of this otherwise placid night. Her voice was as shrill as gargled glass and his as coarse as the soured milk that had been within it.

Mary did not mind so much however because such things happened from time to time. Not that she would know. Mary lived alone in this duplex. She lived alone beside Jim Steward and Cathy Santilli.

2

Cathy awoke sprawled out upon her disheveled bed lying crookedly and staring at the swirl patterns etched into the bland white ceiling. Her head possessed a screaming headache that ran freight trains carting rattling metal through her skull on constant intervals.

No, Jim had not struck her. She was certain that he had likely desired to do so, but that did not alter the fact that she had a searing and rather unforgiving headache, nor that she was out of Tylenol. She let out a disgruntled groan and sat upright. On the way to the bathroom she was mindful to step over what had formally been the bedroom mirror (that one she did), the sad remains of the hallway table (Jim scored that one), and the fragmented pieces of what had been the hallway ceilings light globe (she could not recall who had broken that).

Their bathroom was in respectable shape since the fight had taken place in the bedroom and progressed as Jim had stormed out and not returned. Hell, perhaps she had broken the globe when she threw the mirror at him.

Well not really at him, in that regardless of the severity of the fight(s), it was a rare occasion when either she or Jim ever even did so much as nudge the other. They did not hurt each other, they simply tended to both take rage out on things like walls and tables. It was not a healthy relationship as the therapists would call it yet most of the time she and Jim were quite happy.

Today was not “most of the time”.

After brushing her teeth she roamed downstairs and over the few remaining victims that had been various nick knacks. It seemed that Jim ravaged and flung things as he left the house like Godzilla enraged with Tokyo.

It was when she opened the front door to retrieve the mail that she experienced the first bit pleasure for the day, for there on the porch sat a rather large package with a small card attached to it. The package was red with a gold tinted white ribbon that was exquisitely topped with the most elaborate tying arrangement that Cathy had ever seen, The ribbon was of the thicker fat persuasion,not the thin or wiry type; for this package was much too large to be bound with such meager attire. It was roughly two, maybe three times the size of one's average shoe box.

Quickly forgetting the mail. she reached down to gather up her new found treasure, and was utterly shocked to discover that it weighed virtually nothing.

That's rather unusual unless the package was perhaps....a ring!

Surely, that must be it. Jim had been promising her an engagement ring for over two years and it was always some new excuse. Cathy's own mother had said that she was “giving the milk away free so why would Jim buy the cow” in her ever so crude manner. The sad fact was that Cathy was beginning these last few months to agree strongly with her mother. Perhaps Jim really was not ever going to propose to her at all.

This, this here, however, changed everything. What better way to make up for being an asshole than by finally giving her this ring?

She all but danced back into her living room leaving her front screened door hiss shut. She was all but floating as a matter of fact and the smile on her face was both genuine and humble. Her Jim, her Jim had finally done it. So entranced with the artistic wrapping arrangement was she that Cathy nearly forgot to read the card at all. When she herself noticed this she began to flutter and fumble about with such divine excitement that she could scarcely open the tiny envelope.

The glue on the card tore a tiny blemish into the bright red paper when she had removed it and exposed the white paper beneath. She rubbed it like a mother rubbing a child's “boo boo” and quickly opened the card.

There in plain dull handwriting on a dull white card was written the following;

“I HOPE THAT YOU ENJOY YOUR PRESENCE”

“My presence?”, she thought.

She reread it and then decided to look inside of the indiscriminate white envelope and found that it was quite empty.

“You got a package”, said a voice from out of nowhere. It was her duplex neighbor and friend, Mary. Cathy in her excitement had not heard her come onto their shared porch.

Startled, Cathy smiled and looked out through her door and said, “It seems so, yes but it is official, Mary, Jim is a fucking idiot.”

“I heard you checking the mail and decided to check mine as well,” replied Mary.

“I am sure that you heard a lot more last night. Sorry about that,” confessed Catchy.

“No business of mine. I was in love once. It is never easy,” her friend said.

“May I ask”, continued Mary, “is that why Jim is now an idiot....officially, I mean.”

Mary chucked when she said this and it reminded Cathy of how truly fortunate she was to have such a wonderful best friend.

“Listen to this card. It says, 'I HOPE THAT YOU ENJOY YOUR PRESENCE', but 'presence' is spelled like 'I am in your presence' instead of like in, say, 'Christmas presents'”

Mary laughed an honest and heartfelt laugh that again reminded Cathy of just why she loved her so very much.

“Well make sure you that you let me know what is in your 'presence'. I have to get inside and finish my breakfast,” answered Mary before adding, “maybe it is a dictionary.”

“Not a chance. Too light. I am hoping that is it a ring”, confessed Cathy.

Mary smiled and said, “Good luck with that. Do let me know.”

“You will hear me screaming if it is”, admitted Cathy.

Mary then re-entered her side of the duplex leaving Cathy again alone with her curiosity about to burst from within her.

She at first attempted to remove the packaging in such a way as to keep the general flare and panache intact but this proved to be both cumbersome and impossible. Once giving up on keeping it and perhaps trying to copy it herself someday she just began rending. The bow took a moment to undo but once done the ribbon fell away and the box top proved not to be glued shut at all. She rapidly lifted the lid and exposed.

...an empty box.

“You degenerate swine”, mumbled Cathy reasoning that this was Jim not proposing or attempting to make up for the fight but rather mocking her further!

She angrily threw the box to the floor from her lap and kicked the lid away. The paper was fully ripped and she could not care less anymore. As a matter of fact, she began shredding the paper herself before chucking the remains of the ribbon as far from her as the could manage. It had some weight to it so it sailed quite a distance across the living room.

Then she thought of something that she hadn't prior.

What if Jim had hidden the ring IN the packaging? Maybe he stuffed it into the seams of the lid or the box itself. What if he had stuffed it into the bow?

She was now in fifth gear again and had anyone been in the home to notice her they would have likely observed that she resembled a bumblebee as she fluttered about trying to inspect every aspect of the package that she had just destroyed mere moments before.

Her new search revealed a fresh dose of absolutely nothing so she simply sat down upon the floor and wept viciously. Her mother was 110% correct. Jim was never going to marry her, they were never going to stop fighting about money (of which they had none), and she was never going to amount to anything.

Once done weeping she gathered up the tattered shreds that had housed her “presence”, and whipped it into a small waste can near her couch. She then cleaned up the broken shards that lay strewn about the house and took a much-needed bath.

3

Emerging from the bath and drying her hair as she walked, Cathy descended the stairs, and upon looking up from her towel saw upon her living room floor the single most confounding image that she had ever known. There on the floor rested, in perfect unbound state no less, the very package that she had just thrown away. Her eyes instinctively darted to the waste bin near her sofa and the can was empty.

“What the f...” she mumbled to herself.

She cautiously looked around the room and found that she appeared to still be alone. Her screened door was still shut and with a nice breeze coming in negating her using any central air, she should have been able to have easily heard anyone opening that old door.

God forbid, maybe someone entered while she was dunking her head in the tub?

This thought worried her greatly, so she for a moment just stood in place, far too apprehensive to move.

“Jim, baby, this is nine kinds of not funny. Where are you, baby”, she said.

There was no reply.

“Jim, damn it, “she stammered, a bit more angry now as she at last moved and looked into the adjoining dining room and still saw nothing. Just an ever so slight rustle of the breeze causing the flowers to dance calmly upon the table.

“Jim, I am serious, you are scaring me. I want to talk,” she said, attempting to sound forceful but failing miserably.

The kitchen revealed nothing as did a quick search of the rest of the downstairs. She was certain that since her bathroom door was opened when she had been bathing that any intruder would have been seen.

She walked back into the living room and snatched up the package again looking for any hidden contents tucked away into any hidden crevice of this damnable wrapping paper. She gathered up the shreds and went back into the kitchen. This time she lifted the heavy trash can lid, hastily threw the whole mess into the can, and when putting the lid on also placed the brick on top of the lid that she and Jim often used to prevent it from blowing over in storms. The noise removing the lid from the metal can made a distinctive noise and as for the brick...well, it was there just to make her feel good. If Jim had come in and re-wrapped it then let him try it again so quietly now.

Still, her mind taunted her. It said things like, “Hey Cathy, if the man is too stupid to know how to write a gift card out correctly then what makes you think that he could wrap the most difficult gift style this side of the White House Gift Exchange?”

It also asked, “Hey Cathy, even if he knew how to wrap something that wonderfully, may I ask how he did it while you took a ten minute bath with no paper scraps, no trimmings, no visible sign that the scissors were ever used, and no debris that would be left after such a wrapping?”

“Also....where are the old wrappings? Not in the bin near the couch and not in the metal trash can, for you just looked, did you not? Did Jim have time to do all of that and STILL get rid of the paper or does he simply have many boxes?”

She grunted in frustration to herself loudly this time and decided to again try and retrieve the day's mail from the box that she had gotten sidetracked from earlier. She stepped outside and could hear Mary's television playing next door. Once she nabbed the mail, Cathy went back into her home, and saw placed neatly upon the chair the package.

Some sounds that were attempts at words were muttered aloud but beyond that, there was nothing but a horrified stare to be found from Cathy Santilli. There, as if gently and lovingly centered upon the black leather recliner seat sat that wretched package fully intact and as perfect as both times before.

She grabbed the weightless package in both hands and lifted her hands above her head. She then smashed it against the archway that separated the dining room from the living room and moved onward.

“You filthy son of a bitch!”, she shrieked. “This is NOT funny!”

She was no longer afraid and if she was then it was simply buried beneath a now all-consuming and malevolent level fury. She ripped open the basement door which was the only remaining option for Jim...

(“What if it is not Jim?” her mind asked)

...to have hidden in to do this. She no longer desired to know how he was doing this she simply wanted to make him pay.

She flicked on the light switch and with ever decreasing bravery descended now these steps. The stairs were creaking in usual protest but beyond that, there was no sound of any kind. She listened with purpose to hear if anyone was walking upstairs as it was impossible to move about in the living room and not be heard in the cellar. The home was simply too old and too noisy for that to be an option for Jim or anyone.

It was the “or anyone” option that most terrified her now as she slowly moved through the dimly lit recesses of the basement. There were windows but they were of little help since they had not been washed in quite some time and the sun was on the far side of the house.

She nudged into a small step ladder that caused her to scream aloud and she cursed herself for being so afraid. After all, afraid of what? There was no one down here.

She reached down to lift the fallen ladder and was surprised to see that she was still clutching her mail. It was slightly bent up from her smashing the package against the upstairs archway whilst holding it but hold it still she did.

She stood up and ventured into the fruit cellar that had not been used for many decades if at all. It seemed to have been a storm shelter when the home was first built and had no windows. She and Jim had never used the dank room and it was dark and full of cobwebs. There was a pull light attached to the ceiling in the middle of the room but no one had ever bothered to place a light into it. Since it was small, and because Cathy was growing ever more unsure of herself in the darker shadows of the basement she made the quick decision to toss the ladder into the room.

It rattled about noisily on the floor in sharp contrast to the eerily dead silence only moments before but beyond that nothing happened. Feeling now totally foolish she barged into the darkness and was met with a sharp pain that caused her to cry out.

She had managed to stumble upon the now fallen ladder and moderately twisted her ankle in the process. The pain shot up in hot spastic bolts that made her sit on the dirty concrete floor in the dark as she fumbled with her house slipper. She could feel the dirt and the grime sticking to her legs as they protruded from her shorts. That compounded with the stress – not to mention this hot unventilated room - worked only to make her sitting even more uncomfortable. She had just gotten a bath and was already completely filthy.

She felt something in her back pocket and was happy to discover that it was a lighter that she had forgotten about. She flicked it on and except for the ladder and herself, there was nothing in the room except a small box of unused tiles that the landlord had likely long ago forgotten were even here.

Cursing, she got herself up, dusted herself off, and did clumsily succeed in putting her now throbbing foot back into the slipper. She stood the ladder up leaving it in the dark room and proceeded to go back upstairs.

Taking one step at a time she bested the basement stairs and was soon back in her dining room where a bright red package with a perfect bow rested atop her dining room table.

There was no sign whatsoever of the package that she had just smashed into the archway wall.

Cathy wailed in a voice that sounded to her nothing like her own. It was devoid of logic, reason, or understanding and displayed only roaring terror. There was simply NO WAY to move about the house and place that there with her in the cellar. The rooms that sat above the area that she was just in the basement were directly above her and even the smallest movement would have made ample noise.

She darted to the door with great speed despite her pained ankle and began calling with great desperation for Mary.

She hurled her front door open with such force that it slammed cacophonously into the front wall of the outside house. She then hammered on Mary's door who all but jumped from her seat, so greatly was she startled.

“Cathy, what is it. Your engaged, I get it, calm down,” said Mary as she rose to let her friend in. The screen door to Mary's house was locked and yet Cathy was pulling on it with an intensity that threatened to rip the little hook from its base.

“Wait, Cathy, let me unlock the door...”

“Mary, Mary something is in my house”, explained Cathy.

“Something?”, questioned Mary.

“Something, Mary, something that makes no sense, no logic...”, attempted Cathy.

Mary hugged her friend and was made immediately uneasy by how very much she was trembling.

“Cathy, Cathy whatever you has you such a state?”, asked Mary who was then given the story in the rambling and disjointed manner of a truly panic-stricken person. Cathy was now nearly unrecognizable to her dear friend and neighbor, she was that shaken up.

Upon completion, Mary's mind was alive with more questions than she had before she had asked. None of this made an ounce of sense but the only two options available were to call the police or go over together. She informed Cathy of this simple observation to which Cathy replied, “No, hell no the cops are not an option. I have weed on my coffee table and I think Jim has a baggie upstairs on the nightstand.”

“Cathy, it's weed. Who cares, I doubt that they would even bother you over it when such a matter like this is happening,” reasoned Mary.

“No, no Mary, no cops. I think that it is Jim somehow and I don't want to look foolish or have him arrested because we can't afford that. Jim will drain his bank account to get out and then there goes our rent.

“Mary, will you come over with me?”

Mary smiled warmly and agreed.

Mary raised one finger into the air implying that she needed to fetch something and returned moments later carrying the biggest handgun that Cathy had ever seen in her entire life.

“You think that my intruder is an elephant?”, said Cathy only half in jest.

“I think that I live alone and I don't want some bastard raping me in my sleep. If it happens to be useful in cases of elephant intruders, then so be it. Let's go,” suggested Mary.

As Mary stepped in front of her friend and took the lead Cathy pleaded, “Mary, you can't shoot him. Please, Mary.”

“Unless he is unwise enough to lunge out of some dark corner when I am going to proclaim that I have a gun then I am not going to be stupid enough to shoot anyone, Cathy,” promised Mary as she pulled open Cathy's door and stepped into the living area.

“Jim, this is Mary. Cathy thinks that there is someone in the house and has requested my help in finding out. I have a gun, Jim. Do you hear me?”, asked Mary.

Only silence answered. Across the street, the faint refrain of someone's wind chimes tinged in the distance but beyond that, the whole world seemed as quiet as that of a tomb.

“This is crazy,” whispered Cathy.

Mary met Cathy with a gaze that she had never seen in her friend's eyes before. Mary was always laughing and mirth seemed to emanate from her much like warmth does from the very sun. None of that was on display here and this also mildly frightened Cathy. Her deep glare exploded with an existential seriousness as she said to Cathy,”Listen to me. I don't think that it's Jim, OK?

“You have to listen to me Cath', I think that I saw Jim driving by in his car earlier sort of looking to see if it was safe to come home and talk to you. He drove off and I have not heard his car since. I know what his car sounds like and if he had stopped I was going to say 'hello'. He would not have had time to do this if I am right, and I am all but sure that I am. Now Cathy, shut the hell up and follow me now.”

Cathy nodded sheepishly and did as she was told.

“Jim, again this is Mary from next door. If you are in here I will leave and you two can talk. You two can kill each other if you want, ha ha, you know me,” shouted Mary into the house. She sounded to Cathy like the Mary that she and Jim had always loved. One would never imagine that she was holding a handgun the size of a cannon.

To the best of Cathy's knowledge, Jim and Mary had never had even a single falling out. She was a dream neighbor who never meddled and would honestly watch their house for them when they traveled. Jim loved to bake and never forgot to whip up batches of food for her. This made Cathy herself even more concerned that this was not Jim for Jim would never do this to Mary.

With great care, they searched the living room and the dining room. There was nowhere to hide in either of those rooms which lead to the kitchen. The kitchen door was not only closed but dead-bolted so that eliminated any worry from that angle. Cathy lifted the brick and the lid and revealed to her horror an empty trash can!

She screamed and was met with a near sinister glare from Mary for having done so.

“I am sorry, Mary, I threw that package away just a few minutes ago. I promise you that I did,” implored Cathy who was again beginning to sob.

Both girls looked at the perfect package with the cute little unopened card that rested on the dining room table.

“You are sure that you checked the basement?”, asked Mary

“Look at my fucking foot, Mary”, she replied as the pointed to what was becoming quite a swelled ankle, indeed.

“OK, can you hobble upstairs with me to clear that?”, Mary requested.

“It isn't that bad considering, sure”, said Cathy.

Mary again lifted her finger implying that Cathy was to wait a moment and walked over to the dining room table. She tossed the pretty package onto the floor and stepped upon it, smashing it almost flat. Once satisfied she tossed the box onto the front porch and closed Cathy's front door. She then dead-bolted that as well to which Cathy asked, “You are chaining us in here with a madman?”

“If someone wanted to use a gun to assault you they would have used it by now”, reasoned Mary. “You were naked in a bathtub.”

The two ladies made their way up the stairs and to the first open door on the right which was said bathroom. The floor was still somewhat damp from when Cathy had gotten out of the tub.

All of this had happened so quickly that it seemed beyond belief that someone could become so awfully terrified in such a short space of time. It seemed unreal.

Cathy had left the shower curtain mostly opened but still, Mary approached it and in doing so accidentally knocked the shampoo bottle from the rim of the tub into the tub itself. The plastic bottle dribbled and bounced around making huge amounts of noise in the empty tub. Both women were greatly startled and Cathy nearly screamed again.

Mary turned around and saw that it was now Cathy who was standing with a look of utter disbelief upon her face.

“This makes no sense”, hissed Mary who herself was now growing more upset than frightened. She walked with both confidence and purpose into the bedroom across the hall from the bath. The closet door was fully open and clearly empty.

Mary then zipped like a hummingbird into Cathy and Jim's bedroom and it seemed also to be as empty. Cathy had left the closet door opened and the closet light on when she had gotten dressed so that ruled out the bedroom.

That left only the guest bedroom and its door was closed.

“You been in there?”, asked Mary.

Cathy shook her head nervously “no”.

“Open it,” whispered Mary.

Cathy's whole arm was trembling as she reached slowly forward towards the knob. Mary was holding the gun with two hands and aiming slightly upwards until such time as the door was opened and Cathy was clear of any possible gunfire, but she was ready.

The door opened with a mild chirp exposing an empty room. Some boxes had been piled around since it was Mary's side of the duplex that had an attic only but there was no space for even a child to have hidden. The guest bed was simply a fold-away bed with a small mattress about an inch thick and some springs exposing nothing but a bare floor and few long-neglected board games.

However, the closet door was tightly closed.

Both women fully knew that there was no logical way that someone could have done what Cathy explained and run upstairs to dodge stacked boxes to hide currently in this closet. Hell, even the dust that had accumulated on the boxes had not been visibly disturbed in even the mildest way. Still, when the facts portray no other option then the only option that remains must be the root no matter how illogical it may be.

Again Mary nodded, again Cathy trembled, and again the door was flung open.

They were met with the swooshing sound of a plastic shoe rack and some spare painting clothes belonging to Jim. There was a stack of CD's and a few books hastily tossed.

“You know what, I am checking the basement”, said Mary who did not wait for Cathy.

“That is impossible”, protested Cathy.

Mary turned around and looked up the stairs as to speak to Cathy who was talking behind her when something tangled up her footing and nearly caused her to fall with a loaded gun in her hands.

As Mary regained her footing both women froze in rapt horror. There on the floor at the base of the steps rested the beautifully bound package. There was the little white envelope. There was the big ribbon and time-consuming wrapping just as it had rested on the table prior to Mary destroying it.

“You must be out of my fucking mind”, said Mary. She worded it that way on purpose because there was no other way to think to say it.

“I told you, I told you, did I not say that this is what happened to me?”, repeated Cathy at a rate that was almost too rushed to make out individual words.

Both ladies looked at the package and sat saying virtually nothing for several seconds.

“Stay up here with the package”, demanded Mary as she again did not await approval before charging headlong towards the basement.

Cathy did not protest this time and did exactly as she was told.

4

Mary took no time whatsoever getting down the stairs and even less time being what many would call afraid. No, she was beyond that now. She had reached a point to where she was now fully prepared to end someone's life today. She was ready to kill.

She boldly walked into the room where Cathy had damaged her foot and saw nothing but the tiles and the step ladder. From there she checked near the washer and dryer as well as in both of them. There was one other tiny room that had no door and was piled with a few more boxes much like ones upstairs and afforded no ample room for one to hide.

She lowered her gun and sighed, shaking her head. None of this made even the smallest bit of sense

“Cathy, there is not a soul down here,” she shouted up loud enough to have been heard.

Silence.

“Cathy, do you hear me, there is no one here”, Mary repeated as she walked up the steps. “Cathy....”

There on the floor sat the box exactly where Mary had just fallen over it but Cathy was nowhere to be found.

“Cathy, I said to stay put, didn't I? Where are you?”, demanded Mary.

She looked at the front door and it was still locked just as she had done to it. She glanced outside and saw no remains of the package that she had tossed onto the porch.

It must have blown away, somehow, despite the fact that there was not currently enough of a breeze to even force the chimes to ring across the street as they had been earlier. The doors where shut, but the screened windows were open throughout the house, so they would be heard if they were chiming.

Seemed a huge box to blow away with such little wind but it had to have. Surely the box here in the living room could in no way be....

No. Impossible.

“Cathy, this is really creeping me out I want to get out of here. Come to my house until Jim comes back, OK? Cathy?”

No answer whatsoever.

“CATHY!!! CATHY WHERE ARE YOU?”

Mary's hyper-frantic screams were now bouncing off of the walls as she again searched the house and found nothing but empty rooms and no sign of her friend.

5

Blue and red lights flashed in circular patterns outside the duplex home of Cathy, Mary, and Jim. The sky had grown overcast and rain threatened. The clouds raced into one another with ever growing speed as two officers talked to Mary Wilmont and a handful more looked around the property for any signs of the now missing Cathy Santilli.

“Are you certain that you are telling us everything that you know? Perhaps you did not fully dead-bolt the door and Ms. Santilli ran off,” suggested Officer Keen.

“No, no I am telling you again and again, NO.”, said Mary. She was sobbing and the tears painted her chubby countenance with colors of sorrow and fear. She knew that the police likely suspected that she had played some role in Cathy's disappearance. She could hear them running her record and one officer saying to another that she was clean. Not so much as a parking ticket.

“So this is the package, here?”, asked the officer.

“Yes, sir”, replied Mary.

“Do you mind if I take this with me?”, asked the officer.

“Oh Lord, I would not suggest that. Did you not hear what I have been saying to you,” asked Mary.

“Just the same, I want to take this package and have it properly analyzed. If you can think of anything, any other details please call me at once”, said the officer. He was a tall man and more than a few pounds overweight yet he seemed to radiate a force that made him quite a foreboding figure. His blue eyes seemed to attack Mary with a glare that said, “I don't know how you are involved in this or what you have done but I am going to find out”.

“Yes, I certainly will,” said Mary, still somewhat weeping. “She was my best friend and I loved her with all of my heart.”

The officer simply nodded and said, “Please have a safe night, ma'am.” He then walked away and the police drove off.

6

Mary awoke the next day to the sound of her cell phone playing some dreadful ringtone. Today was a work day and that was never a good day. Nothing was worse than telemarketing and that was her dreadful lot in life.

She quickly showered and dressed for work. She was careful to use just enough perfume to maybe score that date with her manager that she had been hoping for now for weeks and could maybe even stop on the way home and print up some “MISSING PERSON” fliers for poor Cathy if she had not shown up by then.

Mary had a dreadful feeling that she would not. Just the same she intended to knock on Cathy's door before work. She had slept with her gun all night under her pillow and had thankfully not had to use it.

Once downstairs she opened her front door and began screaming.

There on her side of the porch was a package. THE PACKAGE.

The screaming went on and on and soon neighbor's from across the street, the ones with the wind chimes and his diagonal neighbor too were coming over but it did not matter. Mary just kept screaming and screaming and screaming...