The Incident at Cork & Vine

Amber woke to the ever-jolting familiarity of her phone’s alarm. The blankets, however, lay heavy and foreign as she looked around the room for Josh. She quickly realized she wasn’t in their tiny apartment bedroom; the apartment Josh promised they would move out of as soon as things took off for him. Josh was a freelance photographer, and while some of his more exotic destinations made for great vacations, they needed to start thinking practically about their future. But this was not a day to worry about that. Today was for living in the moment. Embracing the intangible wonders of the human heart. Today was her wedding day.

After a shower and some make-up, Amber exited the room and made her way toward the top of the giant, wooden, spiral staircase, which was the centerpiece of the lobby at Cork & Vine, Artisan Vintners. The main building was an enormous old farmhouse that had been renovated with reclaimed wood. It housed the winery itself, a restaurant, and an event space with a veranda that overlooked the property.

It was lavish to a degree that discomforted Amber. She’d tried turning him down, but when her ailing grandfather insisted he be allowed to give his only granddaughter her perfect wedding before departing, she couldn’t disappoint him. After all, what she really cared about was Josh, and the life that stretched out before them.

“Good morning, miss,” an impish looking man in a tuxedo greeted her as she stepped off the staircase. “Breakfast is just through there.” He pointed to two open French doors that led onto a veranda. Beyond, was the vineyard. Rolling hills faded into the distance, and at one end, the field abutted a lush, evergreen forest.

About half the tables were full, and the mimosas were plentiful. Amber spotted Josh and gave him an excited wave as she sat down with her bridesmaids. They could see each other before the ceremony, but Amber’s grandfather had insisted that they sleep in separate rooms the night before the wedding; not out of any illusion of purity, but simply tradition.

“No, I just thought he looked out of place, that's all.” Christine, Amber’s maid of honor, had taken notice of an oddly dressed man standing by the open doors, behind the diminutive character who’d ushered Amber onto the veranda.

“Huh?” Amber had been lost in thought.

“No, it’s nothing. I was just commenting on that guy’s outfit,” she gestured subtly. “Doesn’t it look out of place? Like, he’s dressed as a monk, or something from a Renaissance fair. You can’t even see his face with that hood.”

“Yeah,” Amber furrowed her brow in mild interest as she scrutinized the two men. “And look! Now he’s handing something to the other guy!” As a naturally curious person, Amber had surrounded herself with friends who were equally willing to indulge in her social hypotheses.

“Oh, yeah! What is that?”

“Looks like an envelope.”

“I wonder if it’s some kind of surprise from Josh!”

“I don’t know; it looks more like something…”

As Amber struggled to find the right word, the man in the tuxedo locked eyes with her, the envelope in his hand, and the man in the hood, gone. A chill shot through her. She was paralyzed with a fear that rose up from some primordial, instinctual depth; tendrils slithered, creeping their way up, through the bedrock, through the soil that fed the grapes that made the wine they would drink that night, to tickle the floorboards under her feet.

The man broke eye contact and Amber felt the tension leave her body as she slumped back in her chair, heart still racing from the inexplicable experience.

“Whoa, are you okay?” Christine supported Amber gently by her elbow.

“Yeah… uh… yes.”

“What was that about? You sort of just went blank for a second and then got all limp!”

“I don’t know,” Amber caught her breath. “I’ve never had a panic attack. It just hit me out of nowhere when that guy,” she began gesturing toward the French doors, “made eye… contact … Where’d he go?” Amber glanced around. There was something wrong with him, or about him. She knew it.

She didn’t see the short man for the rest of the morning or afternoon, and by the time she was officially Mrs. Marsh-Brindley, she’d completely forgotten about him. As the night wore on, however, and the reception started to die down, he made himself known, again. His piercing stare studied her from the reflection of her wine glass, from the windows; was he even in the facets of the diamond on her finger?

The same cold dread seized her, though weakened by the indirect nature of the medium. She felt something graze her bare ankle, and leapt half way out of her seat from the surprise, spilling most of her wine in the process. Her newly stained dress wasn’t her concern. She stared at the empty glass, turning it in her hands, making sure no wine-stained visage remained.

Josh was right there to help, throwing napkins down on the table, and taking the glass from Amber. He set it down and looked around the now, mostly vacant, room. The party had officially wound down. “Think it’s time to call it?”

“Sure do!” Her sarcasm peeked through her weariness. With her arm around Josh’s shoulder, they made their way back up the spiral staircase to their suite. As they collapsed onto the bed, Amber started laughing, almost deliriously. Josh eyed her for a moment before joining in, himself. It was a release valve for the day of stress, and an exaltation for their new life.

After a few moments their laughter faded, and all that remained were their deep breaths, recovering from the fit. And as even that faded, the symphony of a woodland night crept in through the open window. Sounds of summer insects, small wetland frogs peeping, and the occasional hoot of an owl lulled the newlyweds to sleep; the epiphany of their new happiness having taken the last of their consciousness.

Amber, in the midst of a dreamless sleep, felt the world come rushing back to her. BANG! The door swung open with such force it had hit the wall and bounced back. Her eyes adjusted. It was swinging open again, revealing the impish man and his abhorrent eyes. He skittered toward Josh’s side of the bed. Amber, despite her own fear, strained to grab Josh, to protect him somehow, but she couldn’t move.

She still possessed all of her senses, but she was paralyzed. In her head she screamed, but all that came out was a quiet groan. She blinked and he was inches from the bed. Inches from Josh. With one hand, the man raised a finger to his lips, so she’d know this was their little secret, and with the other, grabbed Josh’s collar.

Though her eyes were locked with the man’s, in her periphery she saw Josh stir. He was facing away from her, laying on his side, but as he began turning to look at her, she saw that only his head was moving, stretching the skin on his neck and turning it white, as the motion wrung the blood out of his capillaries. By the time she could see his face, the skin had begun tearing. Josh’s face came to a stop nearly 180 degrees around, the same sickening smile as the man, wrenched across his now ghastly visage.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”

She wasn’t screaming in her head anymore. She felt the command spill from her throat with vitriol, and, with a rush of air and thick, blinding darkness, the man was gone. Amber groped the sheets on Josh’s side, but found no purchase. In a panic, scrambling to get out of the bed, she felt her foot catch on the blanket, sending her head first onto the floor. Unconsciousness, again, took her.

A cold breeze caressed her face and she was awake. The room had changed, though. It was covered in cobwebs. Furniture had dusty sheets draped over it, and the window was open. No, it was broken. Where was Josh? Why was it so cold? Wasn’t it summer? She burst from the room and flew down the staircase. “Josh!?” her hoarse calls echoed through the dilapidated main floor; it was the same here, decrepit and abandoned. The bones of a monster.

Amber heard a shout from beyond the open doors to the veranda. “Josh!!” She began sprinting. Through the door, onto the veranda, down the stairs, until she was among the vines. “Josh! Can you hear me!?” She stopped running to listen. The vines chittered as something darted between the rows. Amber took off running again. She could hear it behind her. A combination of sloshing, crunching glass, and something else. A sound. A moan? A voice?

“A…aaa…mb…errrrr. Pl…ea…se.” She knew it couldn’t be, but the temptation to look, to save him, was too much. Still sprinting, she glanced back, and the sight made her dizzy. Josh had been grafted to a giant grapevine. His eyes, lidless, pierced her mind as both he and the vine leaked a mixture of blood and wine. Overcome by the macabre sight, she collapsed.

“Hey, over here!” a sheriff’s deputy shouted to his partner.

A searing pain shot through Amber’s chest as she came to. The deputy was rubbing his knuckles on her sternum. She screamed.

“Woah, woah; hey, you’re okay. We’ve got you.” He turned to his partner and motioned. Then he addressed Amber directly, “We’re going to get you back to the hospital. Can you stand?”

Amber sat up from the dirt and looked around. “Hospital? Where’s Josh?” Her barely mumbled words went unanswered.

“Let’s just get you up and to the car.”

As if a marionette, Amber stood and walked toward the open cruiser door. The deputies shared an uneasy look. Amber remained silent during the drive.

At the hospital, when she awoke, it was to hushed voices, whispering beyond the privacy curtain.

“That’s her, right? The widow?” It sounded like one of the deputies.

“Yeah, poor thing. I’m just glad we found her. When they get to be that age, the window for finding them alive goes down significantly; I’m surprised she lasted the night in that field.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” a third voice emerged. Amber thought she recognized it. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We’re bringing in her primary psychologist.” She heard shuffling as the deputies’ shoes padded away down the hall and new shoes approached.

“She’s through here, doctor; we can begin the evaluation whenever you’re ready.”

“Right. Now, remember, she believes she’s just lived that night for the first time. What really happened forty three years ago is that instead of facing the reality that she killed her husband on their wedding night and was institutionalized, she created a fantasy; one in which she’s the victim. Forces beyond her control took her husband, and she did everything she could to stop it.

“I’ve heard the story told in so many ways, now. Over the years, smaller details will change but, I have to say, the consistency and intensity with which she discusses the “imp man” is unsettling.”

“Not to mention what she did to the body.”

“If she did. There’s a thin veil between madness and sanity. We do our best with the tools we’ve developed but, admittedly, not everything is in our books or under our microscopes.”

The curtain opened. “Good morning Mrs. Brindley; we’re here to help you make sense of what happened last night.”