Epilogue
(Wow, I’m Glad I’m Not That Guy.)
Annie Potts did not want to go, and the twins had to parade Toby to encourage her to join them. Annie had been besotted with Toby since she was eleven and he was the only one unaware of it.
When they all tumbled into the car the twins had positioned Toby so Annie would have to sit pressed up beside Toby, and she had almost died with embarrassment and sheer joy. During the drive, he had put his arm around her, and though she knew it was so he could hold on to the back of the seat to steady himself she felt her heart quicken.
Toby was tall and movie-star handsome, while Annie was something of a plain Jane, and she understood when people looked at her with pity when Toby was mentioned. The looks pained her, but she had no illusions.
The drive took them on the road out of town.
“We went there earlier this week,” Brady said. He was the eldest of the twins. He was fifteen minutes his brother’s senior, and he always acted like those fifteen minutes made him superior in every way, it was for this reason alone that most preferred the younger of the two, but Brady had a car, so people treated him well.
“I’m not going in again,” Grady said. His nervousness hung on every word but even they couldn’t penetrate the euphoria Annie felt cuddled up to Toby. Grady supported his dog with his arm as the car accelerated. The sheepdog answered to the name Tanner and was wedged up between Annie and Grady.
In the front passenger seat was Brady’s girlfriend, Catherine. Even though she was always friendly and had never harmed anyone as far as Annie knew, Annie had never met anyone who liked her. Looking into Catherine’s eyes was like looking into a shark’s eyes and despite all the good deeds she gave everyone the creeps. Everyone except Brady that was.
The car slowed and turned the corner to pass through the tall gateposts that no longer supported a gate, and everyone’s eyes turned to their left.
The car drifted to a stop and Toby opened his door to climb out.
“You’re not going in?” Grady said with alarm, and Toby smiled and climbed out of the car into the cold night air.
The men sat in the foyer and played chess. Neither of them remembered where the set had come from. Perhaps Chaz had dug it out from somewhere. He was like that, maybe because he was an ex-cop, but he always seemed to have the tools for the job.
Barbara and Bart Nicholson sat and watched them. Both had their respective publications on their knees. Barbara had her mostly unread novel and Bart with his Anglers Weekly. Both were too engaged in the game to remember what they were holding.
The one man moved, and the other grinned.
“That was a bad idea surrounded by bad ideas,” his opponent said, “All the other bad ideas are looking at the idea you just had, and they’re saying, ‘wow, I’m glad I’m not that guy’.”
The other man was the quieter of the two. He was studious and played the game as if the outcome had great significance. He knew his opponent was headstrong, and that he would make a glaring mistake soon, so all he had to do was wait and try not to concede pieces.
The grinning man moved his knight and the quiet man triggered his trap and took it.
“What?” The grinning man said. He wasn’t grinning anymore.
The quiet man replaced the pieces and showed him the moves he had made. The grinning man carefully watched with growing dismay. He hadn’t realised who his opponent was, but he was beginning to learn.
A click drew their attention. It sounded like someone tapping on the glass.
The groups approached with Toby in the lead. He had not noticed when Annie had taken him by the hand, he seemed so used to the fact that strange girls would cosy up to him that he barely noticed. She knew the realisation should hurt but she didn’t care. It was enough that she could pretend for the moment.
Behind her were Brady and Catherine. Grady had refused to step from the car and Annie had wondered what had scared him so badly about the place. Even the dog looked at them with concern, his master’s arm draped over him for comfort.
The building appeared as a box of black in the moonlight. Sometimes she could make out light in the windows. The reflected moonlight created shadows that sometimes looked like people standing behind the glass watching them. Then Annie would take another step and the illusion would break. She told herself that it was just the characteristics of an old building. It was nothing more than the glint of a washbasin, or a hole in the wall that allowed the moonlight to gleam through from the other side of the building.
They stepped closer. Inside the foyer, they could make out shadows that seemed to move as they approached. Annie hoped they wouldn’t be rats. Rat would reduce her to the screaming mess she didn’t want to be at this moment. She still had some pride, even if she was willing to sacrifice most of it to hold Toby by the hand she wanted him to remember her as something more than a screaming hysteric.
Toby placed his hand against the glass and peered inside. He squinted into the darkness.
“Do you see that?” He whispered to her and pulled her closer.
Annie felt his hand snake around her waist, and where he touched her tingled.
“I don’t…” She began, and then she saw it.
Two patches of darkness moved in the gloom, they moved back and forth, one from the left and the other from the right.
“Are they moving something?” She said quietly moving closer to the glass without realising how close she already was. The tip of her shoe clipped against the glass and the glass rang almost as clearly as a bell.
Toy and Annie looked at each other with wide eyes then glanced into the darkened room behind the glass.
The faces looked back at them. Annie counted four. Tony said later that he thought he saw another in the background. They were deathly white and wide-eyed as if caught in surprise. The eye sockets were deep and dark but the eyes themselves burned brightly. One face opened its mouth in a wide ‘O’ and Annie screamed.
As the two men approached the large glass panels in the apartment block’s main doors they saw a car had stopped at the end of the pathway that led to its entrance. A group of teenagers ran towards it frantically as if the devil himself were on their heels.
“What are they doing?” The grinning man asked quietly.
“I have no idea,” The other said, “But it looks as though they’ve seen a ghost.”
The grinning man smiled, then laughed. The laugh made him rock on his heels. It rumbled up from his belly and made tears spring from his eyes.
The quiet man stared at him with confusion, he didn’t see what was so funny. He watched the man laugh, his hand pressed to his belly and he doubled over and the quiet man silently watched.
“Not that I believe in ghosts,” The quiet man added, and the other man’s laughter burst out of him in a fresh wave as his legs wobbled beneath him. The evening had moved towards night and he watched as the lights began flickering across the city. The ribbon of lights that formed the highway snaked off into the distance and he stood at the window, admiring the view as the laughter echoed around him.