Trembling With Fear 1/22/2023

Grave Garage, by Robert Zerbe

Inside Jon Cooper’s garage, junk clattered and cardboard boxes rustled. Crickets chirped outside and a cat screamed somewhere in the distance. The air inside the garage was stagnant. Like most garages, it had no access to the home’s air conditioning and the enclosed room was irritatingly hot.    

“Where is it?” Jon blurted, questioning no one in particular.  

He wished he had a time machine. He could stop himself from signing the closing papers. Wouldn’t pack a single box. He wanted to tell himself – ‘Don’t hire the movers!’

“Goddammit.” 

Jon and his wife Kris had just moved into that new house. New to them. In truth it was the oldest house Jon had ever lived in. The move had been frustrating and sudden, almost impulsive. At the end of the day it was Covid that forced them out of their rental and into buying the place. As it had been for so many others. That was the problem with Covid – everyone was going through the same thing you were – or worse. So you had no right to complain. 

“You have no right to complain.”

Jon’s toxic landlord had actually said that to him. That was the day Kris decided they were moving. 

So they moved. It was done. Jon just wanted to move on despite being more traumatized than he’d like to admit. He’d given up on the counseling he’d tried to sign up for (therapy was another casualty of Covid – most therapists weren’t taking new patients, and if they were, it was tele-health only, something insurance companies didn’t want to cover). So he decided he’d just put up with the Covid anxiety and settle for being unpacked and relaxed for Halloween season, something that seemed unlikelier by the day.

And there he was in that unfamiliar garage, looking through containers of junk. All the while being seized by a rage that he sometimes possessed. Or sometimes possessed him. Little things that could make Jon’s life easier had always escaped him. Case in point, labeling moving boxes. He’d been looking for a flashlight for at least 15 minutes. Jon grabbed a box, popped it open, and peered inside.  

“Aha!”

Flashlight found. Jon threw the box back onto the ground and began to scuff across the garage floor toward the mudroom that separated the garage from the house. 

Suddenly, as suddenly as anything Jon had ever experienced, the garage door was opening.

“JESUSFUCK!”

Jon whirled around and instinctively raised the flashlight over his head. He wouldn’t have been able to tell you why, but he simply stared and watched the old garage door open fully.

The door clanged to a stop. It was darker outside than Jon would have thought. The crickets were louder. 

Jon backed up the last few steps to the mudroom door and slapped the garage door opener on the wall. The garage door began to clang and whine shut. 

A beeping noise trilled and the garage door banged and shuddered to a halt.

Something was blocking the garage door.

“Huh?”

Jon stumbled back over to the front of the garage. Nothing appeared to be blocking the door. He leaned over the imaginary line where the door would fall. Still nothing.

Weird.

Another cat screamed. Maybe the same one. Jon clicked the flashlight on and looked out into the gloom. A light rain flirted with the night and combined with just a hint of fog to form Scotch mist. Jon’s skin suddenly prickled and a chill ran down his spine. Despite the hot August night, his breath suddenly puffed out of his mouth. Jon only half noticed. It occurred to him how exposed he was. 

The point of a house, Jon thought, is to keep you safe inside and keep things out. The garage door completely exposes your home. 

Jon huffed and rolled and stretched his head around and around, eyes tightly shut as if that would cure his developing headache. He thought of Kris, who was inside sleeping. She had every right to be – it was the middle of the night after all.

It hit Jon again that his garage door had opened on its own and was now refusing to close. He quickly turned and walked back to the opener. His finger hovered over the device and his eyes turned towards the door. He pushed the button. The door returned to the open position. A reset. He pushed the button again. And the same thing happened. The door went down a few feet and then stopped violently.

No reason to complain.

Jon stomped back to the garage door, kicking boxes as he went, his fear forgotten. He scanned every inch of the floor, looking for the offending item. He saw absolutely nothing in the way of the door. He even grabbed a few items near the entryway and shoved them aside. He again walked back to the button and pressed it. The door fully opened and Jon pressed the button again. Again it stopped, blocked by something. Jon had had enough.

“Fuck this!”

Jon stormed to the center of the room, reached up, and pulled the garage door’s emergency release cord. He walked to the entrance, reached up for the door’s handle, and pushed forward and pulled down.

A loud and powerful grinding and creaking noise overtook everything. 

Jon lowered the door until the bottom was level with his chest, blocking his view of the world outside. That’s when he heard the footsteps. 

Jon stopped and listened, a mix of fear and curiosity filling his head. A few moments passed. All he could hear were the crickets and the door was heavy, so he finished lowering it. He listened for a few moments more until he was satisfied he’d been imagining the footsteps. He stepped back.

“Thank God.” 

Jon stopped and looked at the garage door. He thought with it closed, he’d see what had blocked it. Nothing.

“Okay then!”

Jon thought about engaging the door motor again but figured he’d leave it off for the night. He turned to leave and got halfway to the mudroom before he heard the garage door grinding and creaking open again.

Opening by hand.

Jon whirled again and watched in horror as the garage door continued to open. He saw no one standing on the other side and his mind spun and spun with confusion and fear. 

The door finally came to a stop and Jon looked out in horror. Nothing happened. Even the crickets had gone silent. Jon began to wonder if maybe the door had some sort of backup mechanism that would explain how it had just opened. Then he heard it. An unintelligible whispering filled the garage. Jon saw his breath for sure this time as the air turned cold and the whispering grew louder and surrounded him. 

Some part of Jon – a sixth sense, the lizard part of his brain, his peripheral vision – sensed a ghostly figure lurking outside the house, but only briefly. It then rushed the garage so fast Jon could only scream. But not before one final thought.

No reason to complain. 

***

Jon Cooper’s house sat with the garage door open for about a minute. Slowly, the door began to lower shut with stressful creaks and groans. It banged closed and the crickets began to chirp cautiously again and the Scotch mist continued to form.