Wander with Me

One winter night, somewhere in the middle of Hampshire, I was driving through the darkness down a stretch of empty carriageway. And as I passed by the fallow fields and the sleeping farmhouses I saw it in the sky; a little black thing which yet found a way to be visible against the equal black of the night. It seemed to move slowly, parallel to me, and I felt its eyes on me even before I imagined it could have them. And then I saw the rest of it -- two great wings, like those of some deranged owl, bursting from sharp shoulders, and I perceived it as a man. He drifted on the cold winter wind without clear purpose nor route -- but now he had seen me and I had seen him and we both watched the other in fear. The little man was something -- but I didn't know what and I continued to drive with no change in my acceleration nor pressure on my brake. I only watched him drift across the road until he vanished behind the treetops of some little woodland.

When an hour had passed and I had seen only a few cars, I was ready to throw that aberration from my memory when I saw him again. This time he was not flying but perched on a motorway sign, his bare and long-nailed feet click-clacking against the metal, and his wings were stooped and downward. I felt the air grow colder and frost gathered at the edges of the windscreen as I approached and for a moment I felt the most terrible fear that if I looked again towards where I knew his eyes were that something awful would happen. He came closer with every moment I refused to press on the brake -- for I feared showing that fear by doing so. I did not look at him but I knew he was there as I rocketed past and left him behind me.

Late that night, after I had arrived at my hotel just outside town, I was hanging up my coat when I heard a tap at the window. The same tap I had heard, though I could not possibly have heard it, against that sign on the motorway. Three steps from the window, the dark curtains drawn and the room flooded by orange light from a bedside lamp, I stopped and questioned myself and why my heart wasn't thundering. The taps came again, rhythmic, insistent, and I felt something daring me to pull those curtains apart. But though they sounded, though the dare was set, I knew I would not obey and so I felt no fear. So I receded my hand and, when I did, the taps too receded and I heard no more of these things.

Then, that dark night, I was woken by my phone. It was buzzing in the pocket of my coat -- I always left it away from the bed so that, when I had to turn off my alarm in the morning, I'd have no choice but to get up -- so I groped my way through the darkness towards it. A bright light emanated from the pocket like a torch in a cave. Fishing out my phone, I examined the cracked screen. "Unknown Number," it said. I sighed, rejected the call, and went back to bed. Again, it rang. Frustrated, this time I set my phone to DO NOT DISTURB and no further calls came. But as I faded into the oblivion of sleep, I thought I heard another tap just behind the curtains. And, for the most immeasurable of moments, it was as though the tap was against the inside of the window.

The morning was bright and fresh and clear. Woken by my phone alarm, I didn't notice with my bleary eyes that I had a number of texts. I made coffee, showered, and dressed. The television barely worked but I found some mindless morning talk show so silence didn't fill the room. Only when I sat at the foot of the bed pulling my blouse on did I remembered the events of last night. What I'd seen on that lonely stretch of carriageway. And the tapping. I shook my head at the untrustworthy memory and finished getting dressed -- I had a long day ahead of me. But as I collected my phone, so did I notice the long list of unread texts. All from an unknown number. I clicked them, barely interested, expecting a series of poorly worded scams. Instead I saw a long list of notifications, all of which read like this:

"You missed a call from me at 23:08, 07 Sep. This is a free Call Alert. To disable this dial 102, press *, then option 2 and option 2." There were hundreds of these; one for every minute from 23:08 until 06:59. The minute before my alarm was set to sound. And, at the bottom of them all, was a single text sent at 7:00.

"Come," it said. "Wander with me." I deleted the thread without a thought and tried to cast it from my mind. But, try as I might to maintain a relatively straight sort of mind, my walk down the long, long corridor still ended with me in a half-jog, eager to return my keys and leave this place.

The car park was empty of people, a smattering of cars scattered about, and the carriageway just beyond the fields hummed invisibly with morning traffic. Walking across the tarmac to my car, evading the occasional puddle, I found myself looking to the sky more than once as if the dreams I'd had that night, but I couldn't quite remember it. It was like I was grasping at the finest edge of a clifftop.

There was something reassuring about being back in my car, leaning into the seat, closing my eyes for a moment. The darkness was a welcome alternative to the too-bright morning. When I opened them, I glanced back across the car park and towards what I then realised was the window of the hotel room I'd stayed in. It was open. Had I left it open, I thought? The curtain fidgeted in the invading breeze.

And, as I peered up towards that foggy window, from behind me there came a tap.