Looking Backward in Darkness. Kathryn Ptacek

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      For true friends who helped during dark times:

      Mary Jasch and Nanci Schwartz

      (who also suggested the title),

      and for

      Charlie,

      Who would have said, “It’s about damned time, Chip!”

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      “Three, Four, Shut the Door” was originally published in More Phobias, Pocket Books, 1995. Copyright © 1995, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Bruja” was originally published in Deathport, Pocket Books, 1993. Copyright © 1993, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Mi Casa” was originally published in Gothic Ghosts, Tor Books, 1997. Copyright © 1997, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Little Contrasts” was originally published in White of the Moon, Pumpkin Books, 1999. Copyright © 1999, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Driven” was originally published in Dark Love, Penguin/ROC, 1995. Copyright © 1995, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “The Grotto” was originally published in Graven Images, Ace Books, 2000. Copyright © 2000, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Hair” was originally published in Phobias, Pocket Books, 1994. Copyright © 1994, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “The Home” was originally published in In the Fog, Tor Books, 1993. Copyright © 1993, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Living to the End” was originally published in Fantasy Tales #7, Robinson, 1991. Copyright © 1991, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Dead Possums” was originally published in Doom City, Tor Books, 1987. Copyright © 1987, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Rideau” was originally published in Northern Horror, Quarry Press, 2000. Copyright © 2000, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Skinned Angels” was originally published in Dark Terrors 3, Victor Gollancz, 1997. Copyright © 1997, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “The Lake” was originally published in NECon Anthology, 2000. Copyright © 2000, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Sounds” was originally published in Darker Masques, Kensington/Pinnacle, 2002. Copyright © 2002, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Snow” was originally published in The Horror Show. Phantasm Press, Spring 1989. Copyright © 1989, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “The Visit” was originally published in Heaven Sent, DAW Books, 1995. Copyright © 1995, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “The Children’s Hour” was originally published in Quietly Now, Borderlands Press, 2004. Copyright © 2004, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Solitaire” was originally published in Cemetery Dance #40, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2002. Copyright © 2002, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      “Each Night, Each Year” was originally published in Post Mortem: New Tales of Ghastly Horror, St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Copyright © 1989, 2013 by Kathryn Ptacek.

      THREE, FOUR, SHUT THE DOOR

      One. Five. Fifteen. One. Five. Fifteen.

      Dottie Brewster counted to each number. One. Then to five, and then to fifteen. Then up to fifteen, then to five, then one.

      And repeat.

      At the back door, she rested her gloved hand on the shiny brass knob, polished from many such sessions. She frowned. Was she counting to five, or fifteen now? She’d lost track.

      It didn’t matter, she told herself.

      Really.

      It. Didn’t.

      But it did.

      Her hand fluttered as she gnawed at her lower lip. One, two, three...all the way up to fifteen. Then she started over. One. One, two, three, four, five. And then the next sequence of numbers to fifteen.

      She had to get it right.

      Then she could open the door and go through it. Close it behind her. Go outside.

      Had to get it right because nothing in her life went the way it was supposed to—the right way—when she didn’t get the sequence correct.

      After all, she hadn’t been counting the day her mother and sister’s car had been broadsided by a semi and they’d died in the flaming wreckage.

      She hadn’t been counting the day that Farron left her.

      She hadn’t been counting the day she got fired from the job she’d held ever since college graduation, the job she’d been groomed for during those four years of school and the two years of postgraduate work.

      None of this would have happened, she told herself, if she’d been counting.

      One...two...three....

      Suddenly the lines from the old nursery rhyme drifted through her mind.

      One, two, buckle my shoe.

      Three, four, shut the door.

      Damn.

      She’d lost count again.

      She leaned forward slightly, her forehead against the chilly glass of the door’s pane, and closed her eyes. Tears trembled beneath her eyelids, gumming her thick lashes.

      She hated this. Truly she did. With all her heart she wished she could get over it. But it wasn’t like some virus where you got sick and went to bed with fever and chills and after the illness had run its course, you got up and got on with your life.

      Her problem didn’t work that way.

      One, two, three....

      She knew she had a problem, had known that for some time, and she knew there were people who could help her, or at least try to help. She wasn’t so sure they really could be of use. Psychiatrists, Farron had suggested, go see a psychiatrist or a psychologist.

      Although she recognized the truth of his words, she’d responded angrily, telling him that she wasn’t crazy.

      “I never suggested that, honey,” he said plaintively.

      One, two, three, but she hadn’t heard his apology, hadn’t seen the look of anguish on his face because she had been counting. Seven, eight, nine. Farron had tried to convince her that it was for her own good, but she wouldn’t hear of it, couldn’t hear his words. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

      A feeling of relief: good.

      Time to start over.

      Farron hadn’t understood, she told herself, as much as he claimed he did. It wasn’t the counting that was driving her bananas, not really, although that was annoying. It was the fear that she wouldn’t get the counting, the sequences right.

      Don’t get it right, and you screw up your life.

      She had ample evidence for that.

      Farron, her job, her mother and sister’s deaths. There was her father’s cancer too. She knew that was related. Somehow. It was her fault. Somehow her father had died, because she hadn’t gotten it right.

      There were other episodes, other times from her early childhood, her teenage years when she hadn’t gotten it right, and things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to. Her mother’s closet alcoholism. Her best friend from childhood dying from complications of diabetes. Her boyfriend ditching her right before the senior prom. Her sister’s botched abortion.

      All these incidents were