Dark December [A Holiday Filled Horror Anthology]

The Waiting By: Light-In-Darkness

The Waiting
by Angela Merlo of light-in-darkness 



His side of the bed was cold. Marie curled into a fetal position, her legs just slightly limited by the growth inside her belly.
It was so late. Hours had gone by since she'd sent Joe on the errand, and now her hunger felt like nausea. Something must have happened.
She couldn't hold onto that worry for too long, though. Any minute, her husband would burst through the door with a story that would explain his absence. "Honey, you wouldn't believe the roads."
It was true. Snow had been gathering on the streets for hours. The plows were struggling to keep up. Schools would probably be calling a snow day tomorrow.
She checked her phone again. 10:45 PM. It'd been two hours since Joe had sent his last message.
"Heading home. Roads slick. Will probably take longer than usual."
"Hurry," she'd replied.
"I'll try," he'd replied back, and then nothing.
She'd waited just a little over an hour before sending her first worried message.
Nothing, and still nothing.
Tears crested her eyes. The minute moved up by one number. 10:46 PM. Dread beat her down.
Come on, Joe. Where are you?
She tried to sleep, and luckily, the pregnancy made that a little easier. But about twenty minutes later, the phone rang. She gasped awake, grabbed her phone, struggled to hit the answer button and said, "Joe?"
But whoever was on the line wasn't Joe. It was someone else.
"Hello? Hello?" she said. "You're breaking up. I can't – "
The call dropped, and she looked at the number. It was a local area code, but not a number she recognized. She tried calling back, but though it seemed someone answered, there was no audio and the call kept dropping.
She rolled onto her back and exhaled. Maybe he was stranded somewhere. His phone could be dead. He'd borrowed some stranger's, and he was just trying to reassure her he was okay. He was going to hang out in whatever safe spot he was in till the plows cleared up his path and made the streets safe again.
The wind howled at her window, speckling snow onto the glass.
She grinned a little bit, trying to find solace in the thought, but then the nausea hit again. She rushed to the bathroom, not bothering to turn on a light, and put her face over the porcelain stool. After some dry heaves, she caught her breath. The nausea wasn't as severe as the first trimester, but God, she never expected to feel like she had a light dose of the stomach flu for months on end.
Without turning on the light, she went over to the sink and splashed water onto her face. As she was dabbing her face with a towel, a faint light from the living room drew her attention. She could see it in the bathroom mirror. It hadn't been there before. In fact, she didn't even know what it was coming from.
Edging her way through the hallway, she pulled at the collar of her winter pajamas and rubbed warmth into her arms. Moving boxes lined most of the hallway and living room floor. There was also a gift from a neighbor who was still old-fashioned enough to do that sort of thing. "Welcome to the neighborhood," the card said and was signed by a woman named Beth.
Marie's bare feet slapped against the vinyl flooring, echoing softly on the bare walls of her new home. And there, strewn across the floor of the nearly empty room, were white twinkle lights plugged into the wall socket. The box next to the outlet had been left partially opened.