Sometimes the Road Signs Lie - Part 2

(Part 1)[https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1ncnn91/sometimes_the_road_signs_lie/]

Melanie was totally out by the time I entered the room. She couldn’t have been there for long, but I saw that Ruthy had set her up nicely with a nest of pillows in all the right places and it looked like this might be the first night in weeks that she got a decent night’s sleep.

I undressed down to my boxers and slid into bed next to my wife. I was exhausted, but sleep was nowhere to be found, and so I lay there staring up at the ceiling wondering about the decisions that had led us there.

There had been a knot growing in the pit of my stomach ever since we’d parked the car, and it had only tightened since we’d arrived at the farmhouse. Arthur and Ruthy were nice enough, but there was something they weren’t telling us.

If I were watching the night play out like a movie, I imagined that the twist would be that they were secretly plotting our demise, or that the screaming sounds I’d been hearing were those of their victims chained up in the large garage behind the house, but I didn’t think so. It wasn’t that I didn’t think they were capable - I’d only just met them and had no idea what they were actually capable of - it was more that it just didn’t seem to fit. It was the look on Arthur’s face when he asked me if I’d been with Melanie the whole time we’d been stopped there. It was the undertone in his voice when he told whatever was outside that he was just telling me a story. It was the story itself - what was that exactly? Just an elderly man retelling a memory from his childhood, or was it something else?

A cry echoed outside the window, this one sounding like MAAAA. It seemed more believable now that it was a bird, because it certainly didn’t sound human now that I’d had the chance to hear it without other sound pollution.

Not exactly human, anyway.

Melanie snorted beside me - the preamble to a full-on snore coming in the next few weeks, I was sure.

Another scream, this one closer, but from a different direction. The birds were all talking to each other.

I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to will myself to sleep, even if it was for just a couple of hours.

The house was cold, probably from poor insulation and the single-paned windows. I pulled the sheets up and turned to my side, pulling my knees up to my chest for a little extra warmth.

I was nearly asleep when I heard claws scratch the wall outside the house and my eyes flew open. Was that the coyotes again? Did coyotes do that?

I wasn’t sure.

I sat up and listened for more, knowing full well that in the morning I would feel silly for being as scared as I was, but also knowing that the night has a way of making monsters come out, even if they’re just the ones in your head.

A scream broke through the silence, this one incredibly loud and right outside the window. I looked over at Melanie, expecting her to be as awake as I was, but she only stirred.

I got out of bed and crossed the room, throwing the curtains open hoping to scare away whatever was sitting outside.

I hadn’t expected to see a face on the other side of the glass.

I stumbled backward, tripping on my own feet and falling onto the wooden floor with a sharp THUD.

From where I lay I could see nothing but moonlight coming through the crack in the curtain, and for that I was thankful. Had the face been that of Arthur, I would have at least understood, despite how sick it would have made me feel. But the face I saw through the glass wasn’t Arthur, or Ruthy.

I don’t think it was even human.

Just like the sounds of screaming I had heard through the wall, it was close to being human, but still not quite right. The eyes were too big and far apart, the mouth too wide, the nose too flat.

Could it have been my reflection?

The logical part of my mind liked that answer - it liked it a lot. I stood up cautiously, fearful that the face would still be there peering at me through the glass, but as I stood I saw that that wasn’t the case. I could see myself in the glass, just well enough to convince myself that that’s what I had seen.

Scared of my own reflection. Had Melanie been awake, there’s no way I would ever live this one down, but despite the noises I had just made, she still lay soundly asleep.

I closed the curtains again, taking care to ensure that not a sliver of moonlight came through them, then lay back down next to my wife.

I didn’t sleep much that night. I don’t think I would have regardless, given the intermittent screams and cries coming from just outside my bedroom window, but every time I closed my eyes I could see the image of the face that was looking back at me through the glass. A circus fun-house image of a human face, burned into my retinas like the flash of a camera lens.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I opened my eyes to find rods of sunlight cast from the window into the bedroom. Melanie was stirring, which meant soon she would be awake and in the bathroom. I checked my phone - still no service, but it reported the time to be just before six.

I got out of bed and got dressed, determined to get out of there as soon as Melanie was ready. The image from the night before had dulled by then, and although the memory still gave me the creeps, the logical part of my brain had daylight on its side and by the end of breakfast I would have myself convinced that it had been my reflection in the glass.

I quietly opened the door and stepped out of the bedroom. The scent of coffee wafted through the air, although I didn’t hear anyone moving around the house just yet. I made my way to the kitchen, expecting to find either Arthur or Ruthy sitting down at the table enjoying a mug, or at least a full pot of coffee with a timer that had gone off. Instead I found two empty mugs of coffee and a half pot sitting on the burner.

I didn’t have time to wonder where they had gotten off to, because I heard Ruthy’s voice in the yard calling to Arthur.

I peeked out of the window to see Arthur’s truck backing up toward the large garage.

“Was it just the one?” she called to him over the sound of the truck’s engine.

Arthur turned off the truck, stepped out of the driver’s seat, and came around to the bed where he had two large iron poles sticking out over the back.

“No, it was two this time,” he said. “Got a one-mile one and a half-mile one now.”

He dropped the tailgate of the truck and the two metal poles clattered loudly.

“They’re getting more clever, Ruth,” Arthur said, hoisting the large street signs out of the back of the truck and carrying them to the shed. “It was only the one sign with the Pruitt’s, and I don’t even know where they’re getting these things. Probably off some stretch of the road around here. We’re going to have to do something about it sooner or -”

“Don’t you say such a thing,” Ruthy said sharply.

“I know, I know,” Arthur said, putting his hands up. “I’m sorry. I just don’t like cleaning up their messes is all.”

“Well take it up with them,” Ruthy said. “He’s your-”

Arthur looked up fiercely at her and she didn’t finish her sentence. “He may be yours, but he ain’t mine,” he growled. “Mine’s out under the apple tree.”

The couple walked around toward the door and I quickly slipped back to the bedroom.

Melanie was sitting up. “Hey Matt, what time is it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Somewhere around six I think. We should get going though.”

Melanie stretched. “Yeah,” she said through a wide yawn. “That’s probably a good idea. How’d you sleep?”

“I slept great,” I lied, knowing that the truth would surely cause questions that I’d rather not answer just then.

“Me too,” she said, scratching the back of her head. “Best night’s sleep I’ve had since I got pregnant. Let me pee, then I’ll get dressed and we can go.”

I agreed, trying not to sound too eager with the rising sense of unease filling my gut. She got out of bed, donned a robe that I assume Ruthy had given her the night before, and padded her way to the guest bathroom across the hall.

Arthur had gotten up earlier this morning to collect the street signs we had seen the night before - that much was obvious. What wasn’t so obvious was why. Who had put them there?

The elderly couple returned from outside just as Mel was coming back from the bathroom.

“Oh,” Ruthy exclaimed. “I didn’t think you two would be up for at least another hour or so. Let me get breakfast on.”

“That’s alright,” I said, “we really should get back on the road anyway.”

“I have coffee on already, so at least take a cup to go with a couple of blueberry muffins I made the night before last.”

I opened my mouth to politely decline, but Mel beat me to it. “I don’t think I can look at a blueberry right now,” she said, followed by a dry heave.

The woman nodded knowingly, “just fine then. How about you?”

I shook my head. “I’m not much of a breakfast person,” I told her.

“Alright,” Ruthy said, drawing the word out like she was talking to children. “But if you leave this house hungry, it’s your own fault.”

She went into the kitchen presumably to get her own breakfast started, and Melanie went back to the bedroom to collect her things, but Arthur lingered with me in the hallway.

“Your wife get morning sickness a lot?” he asked after a silence that felt like an eternity, broken only by the sound of Ruthy’s movements in the kitchen.

“She did at first,” I told him. “This is the first time in a while though. The road trip is probably taking a toll I think.”

Arthur nodded slowly. “Yeah, probably.” Then, after another long pause. “You said you were with her the whole time, right? Ever since your car broke down?”

“Yeah…” I said slowly. “Why?”

He shook his head, as if that told me all that I needed to know.

“Alright, Matt,” Mel said, opening the door behind me. “I’m ready when you are.”

“I’ll get my keys,” Arthur said.

The ride back to the car was quiet and uneventful. Mel waited in the passenger seat, resuming her quest for a comfortable position, while I popped the hood and went to work connecting the two batteries to each other to start the car.

To my relief, the car started on the second try.

“Thank you for everything,” I told Arthur as I slammed the hood of the car down. “Last night would have been much worse if it wasn’t for you and your wife.”

I offered my hand out for him to shake, which he took with the leathery grip of a man who had spent his whole life working with his hands.

There was another look in his eye then, as we stood on the shoulder of the road shaking hands, that told me there was more that he wanted to say, but something even then was holding him back.

We loosened our grip and just before I could turn away, Arthur stopped me.

“Hold one a minute,” he said. “I’ve got something for you from Ruthy.”

He went to the cab of his truck and returned with a dilapidated cardboard box. “Some clothes for your little one. It ain’t much, but we won’t get any use out of them.”

I took the box and thanked him, doubting that we’d ever use them, but feeling that if I refused he would insist and I would still leave with the box.

“Thanks Arthur,” I said.

“One more thing,” he said before I could turn around. His voice got quiet when he spoke, just above a whisper and far too quiet for anyone other than the two of us to hear.

I looked up at him and frowned, searching his face for the joke that wasn’t there, nodded uneasily, then said goodbye.

Arthur stood in the middle of the dirt road, waving broadly at us from the rearview mirror as his silhouette disappeared into the dust kicked up by our tires.