A PRACTICAL WOMANThere was a rumbling of thunder and pelting of rain blended with the shaking of the old frame house. It created enough noise to awaken the sleeper sprawled across the pull-down bed. The woman who lay there mumbled in her sleep, opened her eyes and peered into a dark room occasionally lit by flashes of lightning.
"wah wuz that" she said, barely able to form the words, still in her somnolent stupor,. Another sound pierced her consciousness -- a thumping on the front door accompanied by a shaking of the house. It had been built along southern California's Venice canals in the nineteen-twenties when Venice was a beach resort community, a place for diplomats to leave their families while they engaged in their assignments in far east.
There had been a period when hippies "hung out". Some of it had been "re-developed" into condos and apartments. A few of the old streets were lined still with old frame, stucco houses on thirty-five-foot lots. These were rented out but seldom refurbished. Now it was a run-down neighborhood, part of Los Angeles , a market for drugs weapons and sex . . . a slum.
Sarah rose and stumbled to the front door leaning over sideways to peer through the long window beside it, once an attractive architectural feature, now covered with a grillwork of iron bars. She switched on the overhead bulb that was the porch light. Nothing happened.
In the flashes from the lightning she could see a heap of darkness huddled there which, as she watched, rose a little and then fell back against the door making the thumping sound she had heard.
Afraid to open the door in this neighborhood, she made her way to the bedside telephone. Feeling along it's button pad she found the appropriate ones and dialled 911. There was no tone. The phone was dead, as well as the lights.
The thumps came again. She could ignore them and go back to sleep or open the door and see for herself what was going on. An unimaginative person, and curious, she peered though the window in the living room and then again though the one by the door. The street was deserted.
She decided to chance it, slid back the chain, undid the two dead-bolt locks and opened the door a crack. The weight of the object leaning against it forced it open the rest of the way and a figure tumbled gasping into the entry hall leaving dark smears across the door. As she watched, her eyes growing accustomed to the darkness, a puddle began to collect, spreading out from the figure on the floor. the gasps weakened and stopped.
Sarah approached cautiously,and placed her fingers against the body's throat in search of a pulse. Finding none she backed off, crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed staring at the figure in her doorway.
The storm continued to rage. Some of the windblown rain spattered in. She rose, moved the sprawled legs aside and closed the door.
Then she returned to the bed and lay down. There was nothing more to be done. She would just have to wait until morning.
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©1999 Claire Read