Unrested Development

I stood on the porch in the setting late summer sun, watching the last of the moving trucks backing cautiously out of the drive. I lifted a tired hand in thanks and turned to face my new home. Truthfully, it was lovely; a simple three bedroom farmhouse, painted a faded white, hidden away on a larger parcel than I ever thought I would be able to afford. Half a century of storms and wind had pressed and ironed it into the landscape, but the bones of the house were strong, and it was new in all the ways that mattered: a fresh roof, furnace and hot water heater. It was exactly the kind of house that I had always envisioned for myself, right down to the small porch that looked out over the shady front yard. I should have been happy, or felt even the barest flutter of excitement, but standing there, as the sun sank into the patchwork of woods and fields behind the house, I felt nothing except a bemused bitterness at my very lack of feeling.

I reminded myself that it had been an unequivocally exhausting week. I had made the lengthy drive from our old house three times in as many days, hauling loads of smaller household items, hoping to put as much of it as I could into its approximate place before Melissa brought the baby. That, too, was a part of why I felt this emptiness; those three days, I had barely exchanged more than a quick hug and a whiskery kiss to my wife and kid before collapsing into bed, and I felt the pull of them now more than ever. I just had tonight to get through, and tomorrow morning they would arrive, and we would have the whole weekend to put everything back together.

I sighed and went inside. This was my first time alone in here, without the bustle of movers, our energetic realtor, or the curious neighbor poking her head in, and the house was still and silent, lacking the steady hum that a lived-in home seems to generate. I plugged in a fan to get some air moving, and to dispel the heavy quiet that seemed to weigh on everything. The couch, end tables, coffee table, and T.V. stand looked so different and out of place here, and in the dusk they had taken on a rather lost and forlorn cast. I debated on rearranging for a moment, then told myself that everything would look different in the morning light, with Tommy’s crowing laugh filling the air, and Melissa’s knack for aesthetics taking over and making everything look far better than I could do right now. Instead I went to the kitchen, where I had a few select bottles of bourbon and whiskey, and poured myself a small glass with a single ice cube. I could already feel the tiredness of the last few days stealing over me, and figured that a nightcap would seal the deal and knock me out. I never slept well in unfamiliar places, at least for the first night. It was always like my mind was halfway awake, playing defense.

I brought the glass and my small bag of toiletries upstairs, to where the full bath and the bedrooms grouped around the open stairwell. It had been so long since I had spent a night away from the city; I had forgotten how quickly the darkness drew down in a place without streetlights. I set the toiletries in the bathroom and slid open the window at the end of the hall, letting in a slight breeze and all of the varied sounds of a country summer night; mostly an astounding variety of frogs and toads, with what I thought might be crickets rounding out the symphony, and here and there an occasional dog barking in the distance. I found that I had closed my eyes, and was letting that peaceful song lull me when suddenly I heard another noise, from inside the house. My eyes snapped open and I took an involuntary step backward, then froze. The sound had come from directly above me. It was a kind of dragging, sliding sound, of something heavy and flat being pushed across the space above me. I had barely registered what I was hearing, then it stopped abruptly.

When we had done the walk through, our realtor had only briefly pointed out the attic access, and had told us that it was really just a small, empty area, not much larger than a crawlspace, and that we could go up if we wished. We hadn’t, and now I was regretting that decision. I realized then how little I knew about the place we had chosen to make our life; I had no idea who had lived here before, or the history. I hadn’t even seen the entire interior, and now it was entirely possible that I wasn’t alone in it.

I set my drink down on the end table near the window, and the ice cube made a gentle clink against the glass. My mind raced through a dozen scenarios and plans of action, which all straddled the line between cowardly and foolhardy. I wasn’t about to call the police on my first night out here. At least not yet. Even if I did, who knew what the response time was like for something like this. Instead, I walked in an absurd half crouch into what would soon be Tommy’s bedroom, trying to be quiet and avoid any creaks in the floor. I had left my toolbox in there the day before, while trying to free up a stuck window, and from it I now retrieved my long handled hammer and a small flashlight. Moving out of the room, I repositioned myself beneath the attic access, keeping an ear open for any more sounds from above, but heard nothing. There was really no way up to the attic that didn’t involve me going headfirst and blind, so before I could allow myself to reconsider, I hauled down on the hatch. The door yawned downward like a loose jaw, the springs screaming, and I fumbled the ladder down, trying to do everything quickly, to try and retain the element of surprise. I scrambled up the unfamiliar steps, expecting any second to feel a blow on the back of my head, and as my shoulders cleared the threshold into the attic, I swung my penlight in an arc before me, then behind me. I saw first that the attic was indeed a miniscule, cramped space, and second, that there was no way anyone could be hiding up here. The sloped walls were covered in insulation from one end to another, and there was only about four feet of clearance at the highest point. All that was up there was what looked like a cardboard box, and I knew immediately that it wasn’t one of ours. It was about the size of a shoebox, wrapped in a thick, brown Kraft paper, with a neatly knotted length of twine wrapped around it like a bow.

I finished my climb into the space, double-checked for any hidden nooks, then turned my attention to the box, and a shiver of icy dread ran through me. The floor was coated in a thin scrim of dust, and I could see clearly where my feet had left prints. Extending from the box was a ragged smear of a track in the dust, from where the box had been slid, or pushed. I checked again; the footprints all matched my feet. I felt lightheaded, and it wasn’t from the climb or the booze; I was suddenly terrified, and the sane, rational part of me told me to leave this box and its contents here and lock up the attic forever. The box intrigued me though. I found myself staring at its clean contours, stark against the empty attic, and the mystery of how it had come to be here seemed unimportant, somehow. Unable to resist, I crouched down and gave an experimental tug on the loose end of the twine; it slipped easily out of its loop and the twine fell away. I felt suddenly compelled by something outside of myself, and I tore into the folded, neatly taped seams of the paper. Underneath the wrapping was an unadorned shoebox, and I reached toward it, but just before I lifted the lid, I came back to myself. What on earth was I doing up here? Whatever was in this box felt… almost dangerous. I tried to force myself to turn away and climb back down, but I knew that if I did, I would always feel the pull of it, resting just a few feet above me, like the dark mind of the house, beckoning me with wordless whispers.

I lifted the lid.

Inside was a jumbled array of what looked like blank, undeveloped polaroids. I let out a sigh of relief, and picked one up. I focused the narrow beam of my penlight onto the surface, turning it to look at it from different angles. It was black on one side, and white on the other. Well, not completely white. It had started to darken a bit, and shapes began to emerge from the negative space. After a moment, I recognized the house, standing in a ray of late summer sun, much like today. The walls of the attic seemed to be moving quietly and steadily nearer. I held the photo closer, seeing a blurry figure standing on the porch. At first, I thought it might have been the previous tenant, but as the seconds ticked by, I realized the impossible. The figure on the porch was me.

In the photo, I was wearing the exact same clothes that I was wearing now. My skin erupted in ridges of gooseflesh, and more than anything else at that moment, I wanted to slug down the rest of the whiskey in the glass at the bottom of the stairs. The photo was fully developed now, and there could be no doubt: this had been taken not more than a few hours ago. My heart was beating quickly and heavily in my chest, and I should have gone down and grabbed the phone, called Melissa, or my mother, or the police, anyone, but then I saw that the next picture had begun to develop.

With trembling hands, I lifted the photo, and thought crazily about how they used to say that if you shook a Polaroid, it would develop faster. I tried to still my hands, but the picture fluttered uncontrollably, and the edges darkened. In the center, a little light shone, and the darkness at the edges moved in to meet it, molding and shaping and bringing clarity to the subject. I tilted my head, trying to make sense of it. It seemed to be of a man crouching in a darkened room. In one hand he held the small light that provided the source of illumination of the picture, and in the other…