Angels in the Architecture: Part I, Ch. 2

The horror story no one was asking for is back, and worse than ever! Our heroines face the scariest threat of all: an exposition dump!

2. May

 

 

A twinge of sadness lingered in May’s mind as she gathered the last of her things for work. May had never before seen Angela so shaken, or try so hard to hide it. If only she could be a good friend and stay with her, but she was running late for the bus as it was. At least the jaunt to the end of the street might shake the guilt from her.

As she exited the apartment, May locked the door behind her and tested the lock with a tug and a twist of the knob. Though her roommates were still inside, and the odds of a robbery in this end of town were low, she still listened to her instincts and secured both sets of locks on the door whenever she left. She always locked the front door of the house, too, though it only led to the foyer, and no one else seemed to do the same. It was better to take two seconds to keep everyone safe than put herself and others at risk.

May took extra care making her way down main stairs this morning. Just as she reached the front door, the sound of a hinge creaking made her jump. She looked over her shoulder and saw Dan fumbling with his apartment keys, no doubt locking up and leaving to run errands.

May felt obligated to smile when he looked her way, so she lifted her corners of her mouth slightly. He responded with a single nod, which was typical for him, and she didn’t think much of it. She wasn’t sure if she should say something, or if he would think it out of character for her… if he remembered what was in character for her. 

He probably would.

Dan and May had technically known each other off and on for nearly a decade: since sophomore year at -- when they took Fundamentals of Cyber Security together. They had been partners for one of their class projects, and she saw firsthand that he knew he ins and outs of coding. His determination and integrity endeared him to May, but she felt that he was too hard on himself. When she tried to talk to him about other topics to break the ice or the long silences, he was reluctant to speak at first. She eased him by sharing some of her own personal goals, and telling him about things that she had overcome to get to where she was, and that inspired him to share some of his own thoughts, too. He shared some incisive jokes about the way his lacrosse teammates made poor decisions the night before big exams or away games, and seemed to have an endless supply of funny photos and videos he found on the Internet that tickled May’s dark-humored funny bone perfectly.

After that semester they had at least one class together per semester for the next year, and sometimes they worked on homework together in the Student Center computer lab. They didn’t say much to one another, but he always tapped her on the shoulder if he stumbled upon a video of a particularly amusing pratfall, and in no time they both would be stifling their laughter.

Despite their time together he was still as private as ever with her, but sometimes out of the blue he would share a profound thought with her, like how he missed his former high school sweetheart the most during the first week of April when their birthdays fell within a day of each other, or how he felt guilty that he had no memories of his grandfather after a devastating car accident, despite how often his mother told him stories of the things they did together when he was a boy. 

At the time, May had the sense that Dan had no one else in the university in whom he could confide in as a friend. Certainly the other students he socialized with the most--his lacrosse teammates--did not seem like the most welcoming confidantes. That he had chosen to open up with her both flattered and frightened her. More than once she suggested that he see a therapist, but he would brush off her concern saying that he had no “real problems” and “it wasn’t worth taking up a therapist’s time with his thoughts.” 

His attitude about his emotional and mental health frustrated her; she was determined not to allow herself to become his personal counselor just because of proximity. In the spring of their junior year she began to distance herself from him, and instead dedicated her energy to finishing her degree requirements in less than four years.

At the same time, Dan began to withdraw, too. She heard from one of his lacrosse teammates that he had quit the team unexpectedly, and she barely saw him on campus aside from the corner of the computer lab with this back to the door. By the time May graduated a semester ahead of schedule, they no longer spoke to one another, and did not even look one another in the eye as they passed each other on campus. 

Years passed, and May busied herself by networking and building her career. She had heard nothing from Dan, nor even thought much about him. Working a full-time job filled her days, and memories from undergrad were displaced by new friendships with her coworkers and their extended friend-circles. Sometimes she felt a pang of regret for letting their friendship die so abruptly, especially since she probably was a good influence on him by reminding him to take breaks and insisting he see a therapist. But she knew that she had made the right choice: her dignity was not exploitable.

It came as a surprise to her after seven years when she heard the hustle and bustle of boxes moving into the downstairs apartment, and saw Dan at the doorway. He was just as tall and lean as she remembered, but now he wore a thick auburn beard and thick-framed glasses that made him seem mature and weathered.

Cordially, May came downstairs and struck up a conversation with him. They chatted with banal small-talk for a few minutes, asking after career moves after college and complimenting each other’s success. He said he moved back up to New England close to the university for a job working as technology support at a security agency, which allowed him to work from home most of the week. May knew by the distant look in his eye that he didn’t want to share anymore, and she did not press him for more details. 

Since that day, she had only spoken to him once a month, and no more than a few sentences at a time. Sometimes she felt sorry that she was not a better neighbor to Dan. She wasn’t bitter about how he unloaded his emotional baggage onto her, since he likely didn’t mean any harm by it. She was still disappointed at how little he seemed to have changed since college, but she saw no reason to be cruel to him. 

 

Dan’s silhouette disappeared into the darkness of the foyer when he closed his door. May couldn’t make him out, but she could feel his gaze upon her.

 “Bye, May,” he said softly.

“Bye.” She replied quickly. Before they could feel the awkwardness of their silence, she slipped out the front door without locking it behind her, and began hurrying down the hill to the street.

* * *

 

            At the bottom of the hill, May looked back up at her apartment building. The house was a marvel of 19^th-century New England farmhouse architecture, with a sunny yellow exterior (in need of a new coat of paint), a large albeit slanted porch, and a small but charming garden (when properly weeded). To the untrained eye, the house was a snapshot of the world from one hundred-fifty years ago: an untouched relic of a former age.

            In that same sense, the house was also the enemy of all 21^st-century creature comforts. The only structural evidence of the 20^th century, aside from the concrete stairs that zigzagged from the street up the hill to the front door, was the attempt to split the house into multiple apartments with paper-thin walls, plumbing, heating, and electrical work. 

The second floor apartment was the hottest, the least connected with WiFi and cell service, and the most illogically laid out. The floor plan was more or less a U-shape, with two bedrooms on one side, and the third bedroom and the bathroom on the other. In the middle, not at all evenly divided were the kitchen, which was set into the corner (where, presumably, it would waste the most space), and a living room that was rarely, if ever used. 

            Though May had been at the apartment the longest, neither she nor any of the other housemates she had lived with had seen the two apartments on the first floor, but she figured that they had to be small. Dan lived on the one on the left, and the landlord lived in the one on the right side of the first floor, when she wasn’t visiting her grandchildren or on some extended vacations to a place that never had good Internet connection.

            Despite its oddities, May had chosen to live there because it was outside the city high rent zone, yet close to a bus stop that took her right to her downtown job. Though after years of saving money and suffering through sweltering summers, she was ready to move to a place where she didn’t feel so isolated, or so stuck in the past.

            The houses she passed on her commute were all built in the last sixty years; she could easily imagine herself making a home in any one of them. They weren’t large by any means, but they looked much more comfortable than her apartment with their smooth lawns, neat gardens protected by wooden fences, and central heating systems. 

The only exception to these modern duplexes in her neighborhood was the -- Estate just down the street: a dilapidated eyesore that nevertheless captivated May whenever she passed it on her way to the bus stop. Angie was an expert on that house and its owners since she was a Ph.D. student studying the history of 19^th-century improvement on landscape and society at the expense of marginalized communities in New England towns. At one point, maybe one hundred years ago, that house would have been the dazzling and brilliant country home of some tycoon from New York City, but now its shingled façade had become a dingy grey and dirty brown, the window glass foggy and cracked, and even from the street May could see the split and splintering wood on its porch and steps. It was like something ripped out of a Victorian novel, or one of Margot’s horror movie posters. Or maybe it just seemed like that now that the person who lived in it had died?

As May passed the house, her fingers instinctively reached for the jade disk at her neck. It was warm from her body heat, and rose and fell with her breathing. It reminded her that she was alive. 

Death announcements were a horrible way to begin the day, she reasoned, even when one barely had any connection to the deceased. She was the type that was too easily reminded of how suddenly death could come, and how much damage a death could bring.

May’s eyes followed the house as she ambled by. She was tempted to go inside to pay her respects (and satisfy her curiosity) to the mourning family, despite the fact that she was a stranger and would likely be unwelcome at any rate. Perhaps if she decided to go with Angie things would be different. What right did she have going in alone, even if she only carried the best of intentions?

She did not have time to consider the idea for long, as a new sense of urgency arose when she saw her bus approaching the stop at the end of the sidewalk, and she bolted down the road to catch it.