The Corner Of The Eye

“Come on Gen, calm down, there’s no need to panic.” Jennifer strokes her daughter’s red hair.

“But he won’t stop watching me,” whispers Gen in reply.

“There’s nobody there, Gen, you’ve just had a bad dream. That’s all.”

“But look, mum! Out of the corner of your eye! He’s still there.”

Jennifer looks as bade, and searches her periphery.

“Nope. I don’t see anyone.”

Gen starts to cry.

“Why don’t you describe him to me? Can you do that? Then if I do see him, I’ll know who he is.”

The girl sighs, “okay,”

Leaning back, she slowly turns her head.

Jennifer feels her beginning to tremble, and she starts to speak.

“He’s tall, uh, he’s wearing a brown leather jacket... he’s smoking a giant brown cigarette... his mouth is way too big and he keeps smiling... he’s leaning towards me, mum... his eyes are dark green.”

Genevieve screws up her face and dives back into her mother’s bosom.

“Hey, come on, you’re doing good, ’veevie!”

“Mum, I don’t want to look anymore.”

“What about his hair colour, his age?”

“Mum!”

“Well we have to be as detailed as we can, don’t we? The more we know, the better.”

The girl takes one more halting, tremulous sigh. She leans out. She turns her head.

His eye is in her periphery, in full grinning stare, and close, but as close as can be, without even touching her.

She screams, claws her way loose of Jennifer’s arms, climbs along the back of the couch, and runs out into the street.

The sun is setting over the horizon, blotting the sky like colourful roses. The cold settles more deeply in.

Mr. Billingdon, having never turned on the heater for the evening, is roused in shivers. His eyes flutter open, and for a moment, it looks as though somebody is standing at his desk. His room is empty.

There’s a draft. The balcony doors are wide open. Slowly, achingly, he hoists himself out of the armchair, and hobbles over to the wardrobe. He pulls on a warm dressing gown and goes and closes the doors.

Something moves downstairs. Mr. Billingdon swears he can hear somebody talking.

Suddenly flustered at the notion of being robbed a second time, he creeps downstairs in an attempt to catch the intruder in the act.

He comes to the first landing and peeks out over the bottom floor.

It’s empty of people, but the front door, too, is wide open.

He crosses the room slowly, hesitantly, and closes it.

He looks in all the rooms, one by one, and concludes that he is the only person in the house.

Genevieve stands shivering in the street, turning in a slow circle with a panicked look on her face.

She stops turning. She can see people streaming out of a house up the road, but they disappear when she looks them dead-on.

They make strange noises as they dissipate in all directions, and then vanish altogether.

She looks at her house. She is shaking violently, her skin is turning numb.

Jennifer is standing at the door holding Tamworth, calling her with a mixed emotion part concern, part anger.

“Genevieve! What do you think you are doing? Get inside this house young missy, or you are going to freeze to death!”

She walks cautiously back inside the house, and slowly, timidly, searches each room.

When satisfied, she goes to bed without a word.

Mr. Billingdon goes to fix himself a bit of whiskey on the rocks, but he finds that all in the kitchen is not as he left it. In fact, everything is everywhere other than where it’s supposed to be.

The drygoods are in the cutlery drawer. The fruits and vegetables are under the sink. The crockery is in the refrigerator.

He needs a cigar, whilst he contemplates the situation.

Mr. Billingdon begins to cross the hall toward the smoking room, but stops.

The front door is open again.

He feels the muscles in his neck tense and his pulse thicken.

He closes it, again, and tests it to make sure it’s properly sealed, drops the bolt into the ground.

He turns, and there is a man standing there.

“Where the bloody hell did you come from?” Mr. Billingdon barks. “Get off my sodding property!” He observes the intruder’s attire. “Hey, that’s my jacket!”

The intruder evocatively extracts a cigar from the breast pocket of the jacket, and slides it along under his nose.

“My cigars? So you’re the thief! Oh, I’m going to make sure they write you up and down for this one!”

The intruder places the cigar between his lips, and, producing a book of matches, lights a flame.

“The smoking room is that way,” Mr. Billingdon remarks venomously, as he picks up the telephone and dials for the police.

The intruder just stands and watches him, smiling, with smoke curling out between his lips.

“Yes, hello? I’m Mr. Horace Billingdon of 43 Olive Lane, there’s an intruder in my house, I need assistance please. ... Yes. ... Yes, right now, yes. ... Well, presumably, but I don’t really want to find out. ... Would you be so kind? That’s great.”

He hangs up the phone, still making continuous unbroken eye contact with this strange intruder, who says nothing. There is only silence.

Jennifer thinks it best to give Genevieve her space for now, until she’s had a chance to calm down.

She’s been quiet ever since she went to bed, which is a good sign.

Maybe Jennifer can bring it up in a week, or a month, or even six months, but she will find out what happened.

She becomes aware of sirens approaching. Tamworth is asleep again on the couch beside her.

It’s police, by the sound, it’s really loud. But they don’t just pass by. They continue getting closer.

Soon enough, Jennifer’s living room is flashing red and blue.

Peering out the window, she sees the police car outside Old Mr. B’s place, and wonders at whatever is going on.

When the police came to Mr. Billingdon’s address that evening, they found the front door wide open, and no trace of Horace, or anyone at all, anywhere in or near the house. Only a smouldering cigar in the middle of the hall.