Page 3 of Middle of the Night

The third scenario is that it’s just someone going for a late-night walk. Someone from one of the other cul-de-sacs located in this two square miles of suburban sprawl. Someone who, like me, is riddled with insomnia and decided to try to walk it off.

But if this is just an innocent stroll, why doesn’t whoever is out there make themselves visible?

The paranoid-but-logical answer is that it’snotan innocent stroll. It’s something else. Something worse. And I, as likely the only person on Hemlock Circle currently awake, owe it to everyone else to try to put a stop to it.

When the light at the Barringer house next door flicks off, I make my move. Knowing that this house is next, I hope to catch whoever it is in the act. Or at least make it known that not everyone on the cul-de-sac is asleep.

I leave my parents’ bedroom and hurry down the hall to the stairs. On the first floor, my bare feet slap against hardwood as I cross the foyer to the front door. I unlock it, fling it open, step into the warm mid-July night.

There’s no one else out here.

I can tell that instantly. It’s just me, breathing heavily, dressed in only a pair of boxer shorts and an LCD Soundsystem concert tee. I hear and see nothing as I cross in front of the house toward the driveway. When I round the corner, my movement triggers the security light above the garage doors, which flicks on with a faintclick.

For a second, I think someone else has set it off and whirl around, panicked. By the time I realize it’s just me, bugs have already started to swarm the garage light. I watch their incandescent spinning, feeling simultaneously foolish and on high alert.

An annoyed voice in my head that’s plagued my thoughts for years now, suddenly pipes up.Get a grip, Ethan. There’s no one out here.

Just to be certain, I stand completely still, scanning the cul-de-sac for signs of someone else. I remain there so long that the garage light eventually switches off, plunging the driveway—and me—back into darkness.

That’s when I sense it. A presence, faint in the night air. It lingers in that way certain smells do. Cigar smoke. Perfume. Burnt toast. It’s like someone had been here mere seconds ago. Perhaps they’re still here, hidden among the trees that ring Hemlock Circle, watching me.

You’re being paranoid, the voice in my head tells me.

But I’m not. I canfeelit. The same way you can tell someone is in the next room, even though they’re not making a sound.

What’s more unnerving is how familiar the presence seems. I don’t know why. It’s not like I know who’s out here—if it’s anyone at all. Yet the hairs on my arms stand on end, and a chill slithers through me, defying the balmy air.

Only then do I realize whose presence I’m sensing.

One I’d never thought I’d feel again.

“Billy?” I say.

Although a mere whisper, the name seems to fill the night, echoing through the restless dark, lingering long after it’s been spoken. By the time it fades, I know I’m mistaken.

Such a scenario is impossible.

It can’t be Billy.

He’s been gone for thirty years.

TWO

I remain outside for another minute or so, waiting in the dark, desperately hoping to sense more of Billy’s presence. But it’s gone. Not a hint of him—or anyone else—remains.

Rather than go back to bed when I return inside, I roam the dark and silent house that both does and does not feel like home. I can’t remember the last time I slept a full eight hours. For most of my life, sleep has come in fits and starts. I fall asleep quickly. An immediate plummet into sweet slumber. The problem always comes later, when I wake after only an hour or two, suddenly alert, restless, and filled with an undefinable sense of dread. This can last for several more hours before I’m able to fall back asleep. Sometimes that falling-back-to-sleep part never happens.

Chronic insomnia, my doctor calls it. I’ve officially had it since my twenties, although it started long before then. Over the years, I’ve done the sleep studies and kept a sleep journal and tried every suggested remedy. Removing the TV from my bedroom. Reading an hour before bed. Hot showers and chamomile tea and sleep stories droning on in the darkness. Nothing works. Not even sleeping pills strong enough to sedate an elephant.

Now I just accept that I’ll always be awake between one and four a.m. I’ve grown accustomed to those dark, quiet hours in the middle of the night, when it feels like I’m the only man in the world not asleep.

Rather than waste them, I try to put those wakeful hours to good use, keeping an eye on things while everyone else sleeps. In college, I roamed dormitory halls and circled the quad, making sure all was well. When Claudia and I shared a bed, I’d watch her sleep, unnerving her every time she woke to find me staring at her. Now that it’s just me, I spend that long, lonesome stretch of night looking out the window. A one-man neighborhood watch.

Dr. Manning, the last in a long line of therapists stretching back to my teens, said it stems from a combination of guilt and anxiety.

“You can’t sleep,” she told me, “because you think you might miss another chance to stop something terrible from happening. And that whoever took Billy will eventually come back to take you.”

She said it with the utmost sincerity, as if I hadn’t already been told that a dozen times before. As if that all-too-obvious assessment would somehow allow me to sleep through the night. I pretended it was some major breakthrough, thanked her profusely, left her office, and never returned.

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