The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [58]
Someone was knocking at his front door: the woman from next door, Barbara something, joined by the paperboy's mother whose name he could not remember. They were shrill, demanding to know what he was going to do about that poor woman out there and my God this and that and he shouted at them from the depths of his confusion and anger, told them to get the hell off his porch and he had already been in contact with the police if that would satisfy them, thank you very much, it's none of your business to start with. When they had gone he sat down, he felt very dizzy all of a sudden, he felt as if he had to sit down for a while, a good long while.
How, he didn't know, but he fell asleep, there in the chair, woke with his shirt collar sticking to his neck, sweat on his forehead and above his upper lip. He felt chilled. As he went into the kitchen to get something warm to drink his gaze went to the windows, it was irresistible, he had to look.
She was still there, slumped back against the fence, a curve in her arms and back that curiously suggested tension. She saw him; he knew it by the way her body moved, just a little, as his cautious figure came into view. He ducked away, then felt embarrassed somehow, as if he had been caught peeping in a window, then angry at himself and almost instantly at her.
Let her sit, he said to himself. We'll see who gets tired of this first.
It was almost ten days later that he called a doctor, a friend of his. Anne had not moved, he had barely gone near her, but even his cursory window inspections showed him things were changing, it was nothing he wanted to have to inspect. After much debate he called Richard, told him there was a medical situation at his house; his evasiveness puzzled Richard who said, "Look, if you have somebody sick there, you'd be better off getting her to a hospital. It is a her, isn't it?" Yes, he said. I just need you to come over here, he said, it's kind of a situation, you'll know what I mean when you see her.
Finally Richard arrived, and he directed him straight out to the backyard, stood watching from the window, drinking a glass of ice water. Richard was back in less than five minutes, his face red. He slammed the screen door hard behind him.
"I don't know what the hell's going on here," Richard said, "but I'll tell you one thing, that woman out there is in bad shape, I mean bad shape. She's got an infection that ― "
Well, he said, you're a doctor, right?
"I'm a gynecologist," and Richard was shouting now. "She belongs in a hospital. This is criminal, this is a criminal situation. That woman could die from this."
He drank a little of his ice water, a slow swallow, and Richard leaned forward and knocked the glass right out of his hand. "I said she could die from this, you asshole, and I'm also saying that if she does it's your fault."
"My fault? My fault, how can it be my fault when she's the one who ― " but Richard was already leaving, slamming back out the door, gone. The ice water lay in a glossy puddle on the chocolate-colored tile. He looked out the window. Her posture was unchanged.
It was a kind of dream, less nightmare than sensation of almost painful confusion, and he woke from it sweaty, scared a little, sat up to turn on the bedside lamp. It was almost three. He put on a pair of khaki jeans and walked barefoot into the backyard, the flashlight set on dim, a wavering oval of pale yellow light across the grass.
Perhaps she was asleep.
He leaned closer, not wanting to come too close but wanting to see, and flicked the light at her face.
Moths were walking across her forehead, pale as her skin, a luminous promenade.