The Lost Woman

by Eliot M. P. Stone

It was impossible to be lost here, she thought, but it had surely happened.

Impossible because she could hear well enough the occasional snippet of loud conversation, basketballs thumping against backboards, the thud of shoes on asphalt. (But weren’t those the noises of summer? She wondered. And it was not summer.)

Impossible because all she needed to do was call out and someone would certainly hear her.

But how could she call out? It would be foolish. It would invite attention upon her. They would hear. They would come. And they would find her.

So she would have to wait quietly until the morning. in the cold and the darkness, the pungent odor of the pines stinging her eyes, the wary snuffling of small animals deciding her identity, and the threat of a frigid rain, snow or ice. And falling.

Falling.

So treacherous here. So precipitous.

What could she do? Good Lord help her—what could she do?

*****

“I heard something,” the young man said, and turned his head to look. He saw little but a starless night beyond the high fence, the hoops, the bright tungsten lights.

“Heard what?” said his friend.

“Someone screaming,” the young man said. “Up there.” He nodded at the darkness. “In the woods.”

“Not me,” said the other young man. “I didn’t hear it.”

The first young man stared for a few moments into the darkness, then said, “Yeah, I guess not.”

His friend smiled. “You know who I think it was? I think it was her.”

“Her?” said the first young man, confused.

His friend stopped smiling, then shrugged.

“Forget it,” he said. “It ain’t nothin’,” and they continued with their game.

*****

Foolish, foolish. Why had she screamed? Out of panic? Of course. It was a simple human response. Confusion, darkness, fear—panic. Or was it the panic that a sudden awful memory brings?

Herbert…

But she would not scream again. She could not. She would be as still as death until morning. No movement. It was too treacherous and too precipitous for movement or for calling out. They would hear and they would find her, and they would push their gray faces at her, and fear would hang about them like a shroud.

******

The woman said, “I think I heard someone scream.”

She was talking to her male companion as they strolled the half-mile perimeter of the city reservoir, above the pines, the precipitous slope, and the basketball courts.

“Just kids fooling around,” said her companion.

“Uh-huh,” said the woman, clearly unconvinced. “It didn’t sound like kids.”

“Sure it did,” her companion said. “Trust me.”

“I trust you in many ways,” the woman said, smiling, “but I’m going to trust myself on this one.”

And she turned from the well-lighted sidewalk toward the darkness below.

Her companion cursed quickly, under his breath, then called, because they were new to the city, and this was their first trip to the reservoir, “You have no idea what’s down there, do you?”

“No,” she called back. “I don’t.”

*****

Falling, pain…

So precipitous, so cold…

What’s going to happen to my kitten? she wondered, and sensed the beginning of a new panic. What’s going to happen to my kitten?

So young, barely weaned. She could see its little orange face, its huge green eyes alive with alarm, its tiny mouth open in a pleading meow. And, by now, it would be shivering, too, because her lodgings were so cold.

She saw her elegant hat—the only elegant hat she owned—lying in front of her on the steep slope. It was a tall, dark lump barely an arm’s length away. All she needed to do was bend a little, reach for it.

The movement might warm her, and she so needed warming. Nothing had ever been as cold as this night, in this place.

But how could she move?

They would hear.

They would come.

And they would push their gray faces at her, faces so full of confusion and pity and fear…

*****

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” the man said, and blotted the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “You know I don’t like to run, especially on nights like this.”

“Well, maybe you should get used to it,” the woman said, and gave his belly a friendly pat.

“Hunh,” the man grunted, and nodded to indicate the dark, piney slope. “Are you really going down there? Don’t you think it’s foolish? You can’t see anything.”

“I can see well enough,” she said. “I think someone’s in trouble, and I’m going to help.”

She started down.

He watched her until she was visible as a pale, elongated oval—her clothes dimly reflecting the light of the streetlamps around the reservoir—then shook his head in frustration.

“Wait,” he called. “I’m coming, too.”

*****

Falling, pain…

So precipitous here, so cold…

And her little parakeet would wonder, as well, in the small and needy way that captive birds must wonder about such things, Where is she? Where is my mistress?

And Herbert—who had promised something special this night, something lasting (But, Good Lord, why did she only this moment remember?)—would knock at her door (once, twice), then, receiving no answer, would go away, and there would be nothing lasting between them, ever. Only separation and distance and tears.

Tears.

*****

“Now tell me you didn’t hear that!” said the woman to her male companion. She had abruptly stopped moving down the dark slope.

Her companion shook his head, though he knew she couldn’t see him in the darkness.

She said, “Well, did you or didn’t you? I heard someone crying.”

“More than likely, it was an animal,” her companion said.

“Animals don’t cry,” she said.

“Sure they do.”

She fell silent a moment, then said, “Wait, do you hear it now? Someone is very definitely crying down there.”

“Yes,” he said. It was a whisper. “Yes,” he repeated, as if in awe.

*****

No weeping.

No weeping…

For she remembered now—Herbert would become very angry if he heard weeping. He would ask her why she had always been so weak, so vulnerable, so clinging.

Of course he could barely stand her the way she was, and she understood that. Likely he would not even help her in this situation. “It is something you’ve brought upon yourself, and you deserve whatever comes to you,” he’d say.

But what could Herbert do for her, now?

What could anybody do for her, now?

And what could tears do for her except bring them closer!

It was so cold here, so very, very cold. The kind of cold that goes beyond the cold of winter, snow or ice. Only death itself was as cold as this place and this night.

*****

“We’re doing something very stupid,” the man said. “And dangerous. I mean, we’re talking major injury here, to say nothing of bugs, and spiders, and animals that bite.”

He and his companion were fifty feet down the dark slope, now, and she was several arm’s lengths in front him.

“Stop whining,” she said. “You’re always whining. And besides, anything we encounter tonight is going to be as afraid of us as we are of it.”

*****

They were close.

Too close.

Too close.

She could hear them talking; their words were so soft, so loud, so angry, so timid—the voices of memory, stillness, pain, fear.

To say nothing of bugs and spiders and animals that bite.

And besides anything we might encounter…

She could see their gray faces, too, eyes brittle and cold, mouths that moved like the mouths of fish—their words of pity and fear slicing the frigid night air, words she had heard a thousand times before, on a thousand nights just like this night.

A century’s worth of nights filled with screams.

A century’s worth of nights filled with murder.

Her murder.

Again, and again, and again.

On these cold nights that were winter nights, autumn nights, summer nights.

On these nights without stars or light.

Her murder! Again and again and again.

“Herbert!” she cried out, and cried again. “Herbert!”

*****

“It’s so hot!” said the man to his companion.

She made no reply.

“Are you all right?” the man said.

His companion said, “My God!” It was a whisper. “My God,” she repeated.

The man heard fear in her voice. He was very close to her. He could touch her if he wanted. But as close as she was, she was all-but indiscernible in the night woods.

“My God,” he heard her say again, still in a whisper. “She’s so alone, so lost, so lost…”

And he looked where his companion was looking, and saw what she was seeing—a small figure in pale green trapped in the suffocating darkness…

A soul caught in the death grip of its own torment…

A torment of pain and loneliness so fierce and hot that it glowed.

The man’s companion turned her head slightly, so she was looking up, beyond the black pines, toward the top of the precipitous slope, back the way they had come.

And he looked, too.

And saw what she was seeing.

And screamed.

*****

“Herbert!” cried the lost woman.

And there he was, so close, looming above her like a cloud full of fire.

Herbert. Her fiancé. Her lover. Her murderer.

“Herbert!” she cried out.

Who will take care of my kitten, who will take care of my little bird, who will take care of me?

And she knew, even as she cried out, that Herbert cared about none of these things, that his wide mouth was drawn into the same tight smile that she had seen on a thousand frigid nights that were just like this night, nights without stars or light, nights full of pain…

Nights full of the living pushing their faces at her…

Nights full of the living mouthing their words of pity and confusion and fear.

And seeing Herbert, too.

And screaming with her into the broad and grinning face of eternity.
*****

Eliot M.P. Stone is a tool and die maker from Cincinnati who spends all his free time writing “whacked out” stories and tending to the many needs of his fourteen-year-old yellow lab, Mac, who, says Eliot, is “the greatest dog in the long, long history of dogs.”