The Slab

by Michael R Collings

  For a moment, he almost turned back to the girls and unbuckled their seatbelts and helped them from the car. Part of him wanted to. But that part was weaker than the part that repeated incessantly Get out get out get out. Even that part knew that Elizabeth’s injury had little to do with the need to be away-away from obsessive Ellen and her obnoxious brood, away from Mitch’s unfeeling superciliousness, away from…

  Away from this house!

  Admit it, Jay old boy, that’s the real thing. Away from this house. He swallowed convulsively and gestured for Linda to get into the car. As she passed him, she reached out for his arm again, as if she were his mother trying to help him realize for himself the enormity of his mistake before things went too far.

  He shook his head. “I know what I’m doing, hon.” He waited until she was in the car, then he returned alone to the front door.

  Ellen and Mitch were still in the family room. They were not speaking; they were watching him with an intensity that unnerved him. The boys were gone-whether out back or into the bedroom Ellen and Mitch were using, Jay didn’t know. He didn’t care, either. After the way Thad had acted the first day, after Josh injuring Elizabeth today, he didn’t give a damn if he never spoke to his sister again. He focused his attention on his father.

  Abraham Morris looked old and frail in the filtered light. His skin hung loosely from his face, his lips trembled even though he was not speaking, and his eyes darted back and forth, as if he were trying to discover who this stranger was standing in front of him.

  “Dad,” Jay said as gently as he could. “Dad, Linda and I have to leave. You understand?”

  Abe nodded.

  Jay wasn’t sure that the movement meant; there was something about it that suggested his father did not understand anything that had happened in the past few minutes.

  “Look,” Jay continued, “I’ll call you as soon as we get home. We’ll have you out to our place soon. Maybe later this week. You can come out and stay until New Years if you want. Longer. We’ve got the room. And I don’t like the idea of you staying here in this house…alone.”

  Abe’s eyes cleared. His lips stopped their nervous tremors, and when he spoke, Jay heard his father’s voice the way he remembered it from years before.

  “I’m fine, Jay. I’ll be fine. You just take care of Lizzy-Bizzy and Anna-banana and Linda, and let me worry about me.”

  Jay swallowed. He hadn’t heard his father use those pet names for years.

  “Okay, Dad.” He paused, unsure what to say next. “Look, tell Ellen that…tell her I’m…I’m sorry and I’ll call her later, too. When I’ve had a chance to cool down.”

  Abe nodded. “That would be wise. I’ll talk to her.”

  Jay looked at his father and-on an impulse he would never quite understand but for which he was grateful for the rest of his life-reached out abruptly and threw his arms around his father. He felt the angularity of bone beneath the bulk of Abe’s clothing, and realized anew that his father was old and frail and thin. He hugged Abe with all the strength he could muster, and when the two men finally broke their embrace, both had tears in their eyes.

  “Okay, Dad. And…thanks.”

  “You drive careful, now. You hear?”

  “Sure, Dad.” Jay left. Abe followed a few steps out onto the porch and waved at his daughter-in-law and granddaughters in the car. Then he turned and went inside and shut the door.

  “Jay?” Linda’s voice was calm but subdued.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Should we…?”

  “I told him we’d call. We’d have him out soon. For a long visit.” He cranked at the engine, relived that it turned over right away. “For a real long visit.”

  The Slab- A Novel of Horror (retail) (epub)

  Michael R Collings

  13

  Ellen’s family spent that night at her father’s house. Not a word was spoken abut Jay or Elizabeth or Anna. Neither Thad nor Josh was punished in any way, but all three boys were unusually quiet for the rest of the day.

  Thad slept alone on the rollaway in the back bedroom. Twice Ellen made her sleepy way down the dark hall to check on noises that had awakened her, coming from that direction. The first time, just before she opened the door, she thought she heard Thad-who never talked in his sleep, who always slept like a corpse, barely even shifting his body during the night-cry out. She thought he was speaking, rather than just groaning from too many turkey left-overs at dinner time. But by the time she opened the door, he was silent and still.

  The second time came much later, just before the first glimmerings of dawn. This time, for some reason, she woke a few seconds before the sounds filtered through her closed door.

  She was up and heading toward Thad’s room before the muffled cries stopped, and this time she was able to step inside just as he fell silent.

  “No, leave me alone,” the boy muttered, his new-found bass crackling unpleasantly into a childish treble. “I don’t want to. No!”

  When her hand grazed his, he fell silent.

  She spent the rest of the night perched on the edge of the rollaway, her hand stroking his long hair. He did not move under her touch.

  He did not cry out again.

  Later, at breakfast, she asked, “Did you sleep all right, Thad.”

  “Yeah,” he answered, almost sullenly. That, at any rate was normal. Thad was a hard waker.

  “No bad dreams or anything?”

  He stared long enough at her to make her slightly uncomfortable. The rest of the table fell silent, as if waiting for his answer.

  “No, nothing like that,” the boy finally said. “It was just… It… Sorry Gramps, but, Mom, those stuffed birds are creepy.”

  Everyone, including Grandpa Abe, laughed at the intensity in Thad’s voice. After a tense moment, during which it seemed as if he might lose his temper-not an unusual occurrence for the teenager-even Thad joined in.

  “I mean, every time I opened my eyes, there they were, hanging there, looking like they were about to pounce on me or something. Totally, totally creepy!”

  The Camerons left before noon. Ellen promised to call her father later that week. They would talk things over, she promised. Maybe he could come down to San Diego for a long visit. A real long visit.

  “We’ll see,” Abe said quietly. “We’ll see.”

  14

  The Saturday after Thanksgiving, 2005, started out unseasonably warm, but by early afternoon the ocean-driven clouds had invaded the valleys, bringing high winds and the threat of rain. The air was damp, charged with heaviness.

  Abe noted the cloud cover as he closed the front door. A car had just pulled out of his driveway, but right at the moment, he couldn’t quite remember whose. It was important to remember; he new that much, but the names, the faces just wouldn’t come.

  He leaned against the door. His face was flushed and hot. He shuffled into the kitchen and drew a cooling drink of water from the tap. He crossed to the cupboard and carefully took down a small revolving stand that supported ten or twelve amber plastic medicine bottles, all imprinted with his name. His hand hovered over several as he tried to concentrate.

  This one, for sure. He knew that he had to take the little white one. His hand dropped to another bottle. The six-sided red ones? Were they once a day? Or twice? He couldn’t remember for certain, and even when he squinted at the tiny print on the label, he couldn’t be sure. He took one anyway. He took four others as well, washing them down with the cool water. He opened the refrigerator and took a thin slice of turkey from a plastic-wrap-covered tray.

  Turkey. It tasted good.

  And it reminded him…reminded him…reminded him… Yes, he would have to get the turkey out of the freezer in the garage soon. Wouldn’t do to have the Thanksgiving turkey still cold and frozen and dead when the kids got there. Ellen should be pulling up any time now, and Jay, with their kids. I’m gonna cook them a dinner they won’t soon forget, Abe reminded himself.

  Just to b
e on the safe side, he took a pad from the kitchen drawer and carefully wrote a note to himself: “Kids coming-Thanksgiving tomorrow.”

  He slid the pad back into the drawer and closed it. He looked around. For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. He felt dizzy, and his breath was painful as he drew air into his lungs. His arm and shoulder ached. He would lie down.

  He went down the hallway, but instead of turning into his bedroom, he continued on to the specimen room. The rollaway was open in the middle of the floor, sheets and covers rumpled at the foot. One pillow lay like something lost on the floor, mostly hidden by the metal framework of the bed. The rollaway. That surprised him. He didn’t remember putting it down, but then he didn’t remember many things nowadays. He sighed. He removed the sheets and pillows, folding them carefully and setting them momentarily on the top of the bookshelf near the door.

  It was a chore for him to close the bed by himself, but he finally got the metal hasps on each side locked. After that, rolling the bed back into the closet was easy. He placed the sheets and pillows on top of the metal frame.

  Finished, he turned and looked over the specimen room. He enjoyed the room. It brought back memories. Everything here was as it should be. Everything in place, just as always.

  No, not quite everything.

  A scrap of white cloth jutted out from beneath the desk opposite the closet.

  Can’t have that, Abe thought. Got to get this place spick and span. I think I’ll have Ellen and…and…whatshisname…sleep in here this time. Let Jay and Linda have the good bed.

  Still puzzled as to what the bit of cloth might be, Abe leaned over and picked it up. The movement made his ears buzz and a wave of dizziness made him stumble. He nearly struck his head against the sharp edge of the desk, but caught himself just in time.

  He held the cloth out, studying it, turning it over and over in his hands until he finally recognized it-and felt embarrassed when he realized how puzzled he had been by something so simple as a pair of undershorts.

  Probably one of the boys’ from last time they came.

  But that was months ago. Abe was certain that he’d cleaned up since then. Why had he missed them all that time?

  His hand closed over the material. It was oddly stiff in places, and for an instant Abe fluttered on the verge of remembering something more, something from his own youth so far back that he rarely ventured to visit there, even in memory.

  He held the underwear in his hand and stared out the window for a long, long time.

  Then he heard a sound. Two sounds, actually.

  He turned toward the closet. The girls were sitting in there, sitting on the rollaway that he was sure he had closed up just moments before-but now their faces glowed with the vivid scarlet of a cloudy November sunset where the light poured through the window behind him.

  Abe stiffened in horror.

  The girls were naked. Sitting naked on the bed and crying, as if he had done something to them how could he have done anything he just came inhere to clean a minute ago then how come it’s dark outside old man, and how come they’re crying and cringing from you in terror in horror but he’d never even considered even thought of touching them not once not ever may God strike me dead this instant if I ever even thought but they were crying and the buzzing and the pain and the dizziness struck again with so much force that Abe stumbled backward, striking his back sharply against a filing cabinet. No no no no he wailed silently as the girls suddenly turned to face him, their eyes accusing and bright with hatred, their heads crowned with haloes of blood that ran slowly down their cheeks and dripped onto their bodies.

  “No no no no no,” he wailed, but this time out loud as the buzzing increased until it was no longer inside his head but outside, in the room with him. His eyes darted around the room. Everything was moving. Wings fluttering, beaks clacking viciously, eyes opening and closing, talons stretching, paws extruding needle-sharp claws. The walls were a wash of movement, silent and threatening and angular. Shadow struggled with light, and even the once-familiar forms of ground squirrels and robins and sparrows enlarged and rustled toward him.

  He tried to whirl away, but the pain and the dizziness came a third time. The last time.

  This pain was an explosion that rocked his chest and hammered the breath from his body. He thrust his hand out to steady himself on the bookshelf. His fingers touched something hard and cold and ridged. The buzzing increased, only now it concentrated itself in a single focus.

  As the rattlesnake struck-once, viciously, pumping poison from its glittering fangs into the old man’s frail wrist-Abe heard shrieks of laughter from the darkness that was the closet. He struggled to penetrate the darkness, to see whether the girls were gone, but he could not. Instead, the darkness reached out and touched him, penetrated his confusion and his terror and his loneliness.

  And then there was only darkness.

  And silence.

  From the The Sun-San Bernardino and the Inland Empire, 1 November 1994:

  YOUTH FOUND DEAD IN HOME, FOUL PLAY NOT SUSPECTED

  The body of Brady Wilton, 12, was found in his Redlands home late last night by his parents, Frank and Julia Wilton, shortly after they returned from a costume party at Wilton’s company, Alexander and Wilton Electronics, in nearby Mentone.

  “They were only away for an hour or so,” a neighbor, Benjamin Morely, revealed. “Frank owns the place, you know, and they really had to be there.” Brady was a careful and responsible young man, Morely added, fully capable of taking care of himself.

  Another neighbor and a classmate of young Wilton’s, Roland Elkins, also 12, said, “He was moody sometimes, withdrawn. He could get angry easy, too, especially the last few weeks. He wouldn’t even go Trick-or-Treating with kids from the neighborhood.”

  Preliminary reports from the coroner’s office suggest young Wilton may have died from a stroke. “It’s quite rare in children this young,” a county representative revealed, “but it does happen.”

  The Wiltons, who moved with Brady to Redlands three years ago from Tamarind Valley, near Los Angeles, are not currently under investigation for any…

  Chapter Nine

  The Huntleys, March 2010

  Further Complications

  1

  As matters turned out, Willard’s estimate of somewhere around a month before any action could be taken on the house was dead on.

  After three weeks of abruptly summer-like weather, typical of the typically Quixotic California climate, the ground finally dried sufficiently to allow any sort of testing. Catherine called and made an appointment to have one of the city engineers come out and examine the slab. But before he could arrive, another, seemingly unrelated, crisis struck.

  It began simply enough.

  Midday Saturday was a lazy time, school work done for the week, chores done, and nothing much to do. The four children were playing in the back bedroom, immersed in their own fantasy worlds of toys and books.

  Willard was watching football in the family room. Catherine was puttering around in the kitchen.

  In the middle of a particularly exciting play, Willard glanced toward the door from the entry way, almost as if he had been called. Burt was standing there, expectantly, as if he had something to say.

  “What?” Willard was irritated at the interruption, even though the boy had said nothing yet. His voice was sharp, his expression almost angry. “What?”

  Burt remained silent for a second, then faded back into the duskiness as he slipped into the living room. Willard watched until his son disappeared, his forehead creased and his eyes narrowed, even though he was not aware of it.

  That was his usual expression nowadays.

  A moment or so later, he heard Burt’s thin voice in the kitchen. He couldn’t catch the words. Catherine responded, then Burt.

  Willard settled back into the couch again, intent on the game.

  Catherine came to the door between the kitchen and the family room.

  “Bu
rt says he can hear a funny noise.”

  “Hmmm,” Willard said.

  “He says it’s coming from the bathroom. Maybe you should…”

  In the recesses of the house, Suze screamed, Will, Jr., yelped as if in surprise, and Sams, not to be outdone, started crying.

  “Oh, for…! What’s going on now!” Willard was up and striding toward the hallway before Catherine even left the kitchen.

  “It better be something important,” Willard muttered as he turned the corner in the hall and glanced toward the back bedroom doors.

  The bathroom door, situated on the opposite side of the hall, midway between the open doors to Suze’s room and the boys’ room, was closed. The hall was dimly lit, as usual, but it seemed like the carpet at the end of the hall was far darker than it should be.

  And Willard could hear a distinctive gurgling from the bathroom.

  “Oh shit!” He stamped down the hall, his footsteps echoing his incipient anger. It couldn’t be…

  It was.

  He shoved the bathroom door open, but already he had heard the squish of water beneath his feet as he crossed the sodden carpet, so he wasn’t surprised when he flicked the light on to see water spilling over the top of the toilet bowl. The floor tiles were an inch deep in the stuff, and the runoff was apparently following the path of least resistance, out the door, across the hall, and into the boy’s room.

  The toilet was spewing gallons of water, it seemed, fortunately clear enough but tinged faintly with not-quite green, not-quite brown against the white porcelain He sniffed reflexively, testing the air. Something…faint, but unidentifiable. Repellent in its own way, but definitely not sewage.