I don’t know what compelled me to visit the crawlspace that day. I think that I had to prove to myself that I was still a tough girl – that I was worthy and capable of keeping myself and my son safe. It was probably arrogant, immature, and stupid but I felt like I needed that victory.
Mitch and Cormac had gone to the comic book store. It was time for my quest.
I went to the hallway and pulled on the white cord that hung from the rectangular piece of plywood. It was hard to pull at first, but then gave way. I startled as I watched the telescoping ladder descend and make noises as its feet touched the ground. I stared at the aluminum stairs for a while.
“You can do this,” I said to myself. My voice was loud and deep. That gave me strength.
I ascended the ladder.
The crawlspace didn’t look like what I expected it to. The small vents near the roof line gave the floor a lot of light. The footprint of the attic mirrored our floor plan. I marveled over the fact that our house was a lot smaller than it seemed.
The reality over the fact that there were no overt threats to me strengthened me. I was a brave gal.
Our previous owner had been a pack rat. During our first tour of the house, Mitch and I had to work hard to envision and recognize the square footage of the place amid all of the boxes that covered the floor of the home. I groaned at the sight of the boxes that bordered the attic.
“Crap,” I whispered.
I walked that way to inspect the boxes. The spider skittering across the top of the box made me squeak out loud. (I could handle being scared of the small things – but not of the big things). Inside of the first box, I found composition notebooks – the type with white and black marbling on the hardcovers. Curious, I got down on my knees and turned the cover on the first one. Written inside of it was an address, which I recognized as a house just a few doors down from my own. Dates and times were written within it; descriptions of cars and people made up the notes. Sometimes, I’d find commentary on one of the entries, but found nothing that gave me an indication as to why the homeowner had kept notes on his neighbor. I looked at the other notebooks, they featured the same sort of information that I’d found in the first notebook, only with different addresses.
“What in the hell?” I muttered.
The cool hand on my right shoulder made me turn and shriek.
“Ahhhhhhh!” I screamed.
“OH! What?!” yelled Mitch, my six foot, four inch, two hundred pound husband.
I covered my mouth with my hand and breathed heavily into it, as I tried to get my heart rate to get back to normal.
“What are you doing?” he yelled. Mitch had recovered from his fear, and was now angry (probably because I’d inadvertently scared him).
“Reading notebooks.” I said to him.
After a brief argument regarding my maturity, stupidity, curiosity and questionable judgment, Mitch carried the boxes downstairs. Corman asked what the notebooks were about; we told him that we didn’t know.
We went through the notebooks for the next couple of days. They were all weird.
“This guy was a nut,” Mitch said.
“I agree,” I said.
