The Sunday Scaries
Volume 1, Number 24
Microfiction by Pat Harrigan
Content Warning: Language and Horror

The Sightseers

Susan, look over there. Right at the end of the High Line, I had an apartment. I wonder if we can see it from here? Of course that wasn’t there back when I was a student. Susan?
          Susan must have wandered off. Too late in the day for coffee, and she refused to drink wine until after five, so Mark supposed it was her bladder again. He turned back to look at the city but then there was some sort of commotion—
          Don’t! Lady don’t, please don’t do that!
          Mark turned in time to see a dark shape drop from the railing on the other side of the observation deck. Somebody screamed.
          Mark shouted, Susan! But the security guards were already herding them back toward the elevator. Please, he said, my wife is in the bathroom, I think. I need to—
          We’ll get her, sir, don’t worry. Just please step in. But on the ground floor she wasn’t in with the other tourists. More elevators came from the roof, with new loads of passengers, but Susan wasn’t among them. They wouldn’t let them out of the lobby. Through the windows Mark couldn’t see much, just flashes, as more and more cops showed up. They’d taped off something around the corner.
          He grabbed a guard by the arm. Listen, I think that might be my wife who fell. The guard looked pale, like he might throw up. Weren’t these people supposed to be trained? thought Mark. Well-trained?
          Please come with me, sir. Some sort of exchange on the radio. About two minutes went by. There was an ambulance out there, but no one seemed to be in a hurry. Then a cop took him over and walked him outside.
          Some questions. Your name? Are you prepared for this? You see, we don’t think she has any ID on her.
          She’d splashed across at least fifty feet. There was a shape of some sort under a disgusting sheet. They drew it back. It wasn’t Susan. She was a fucking mess, but it wasn’t Susan. His heart jumped, his vision dipped and the cop held him by the arm. No, he said. It’s not her, it’s not her, not her.
          They kept them all in the lobby for almost another hour. They took statements and started letting people go. Mark was the last one left. No one had seen Susan. She wasn’t upstairs, or here, or anywhere. He called her phone again and again, he called the hotel, he called her parents, he shouted at the cops until they arrested him, but after his night in jail she was still missing, and by the time their daughter came to get him that night Mark knew he’d never see her again.
💀