Husk

by Hults, Matt

  “Wha-what was I …” She shook her head, unable to complete the thought.

  She became aware of a strong buzzing in her ears and what sounded like whispering coming from the phone. Overpowered by dizziness, she staggered toward the couch but hit the wall instead. She dropped the phone. It clattered on the floor.

  She slid to a sitting position as the room cantered around her for another few seconds, raising a hand to her forehead—

  To discover that she now clutched her .40 Smith & Wesson in a white-knuckled fist.

  She couldn’t recall crossing the room to her desk or pulling it from its holster.

  “What the hell?”

  The safety was off, a round in the chamber.

  Setting the weapon on the coffee table, Melissa maneuvered herself to the couch. She looked to the phone on the floor, remembering the venomous sound of her own words and the volume at which she spoke them.

  She picked up the handset and put it to her ear. An electronic voice was suggesting she try her call again. She terminated the message and hit redial. After three rings, she got the Damerows’ answering machine.

  She hung up.

  Her spell of light-headedness had passed, but she still didn’t trust herself to stand. Instead, she looked to the item that had interrupted her outburst—her pager—and saw the latest message was a weather update from her service provider: severe thunderstorms were coming.

  She erased the bulletin and tossed the pager on the coffee table.

  “Get a grip, Humble,” she whispered.

  Finally, she got up and returned the phone handset to its base. On the built-in answering machine, she found the light-up display blinking, indicating a new message. She hit the machine’s “play” button and listened to her own words echo from the speaker.

  “Isn’t that what humanity is, one big cesspool teeming with psychopaths? How the fuck can one cop change that? I can’t. There, I said it. Shit, I might as well put an end to this whole thing right n—”

  Her mouth hung agape. Along with the lost memory of retrieving her pistol from the desk, she’d apparently hit the phone’s record feature, capturing every disturbing word she’d spoken. Most unnerving of all, the agitated voice on the recording sounded eerily like someone speaking their final words before ending their life.

  “This is nuts.”

  Standing by the phone, she found herself reflecting on the clawing words of Frank Atkins.

  “There are going to be more bodies, and soon.”

  She didn’t know what had just happened, but after her long day of one frustration after another, the incident had drained the last of her patience and left her thirsty for answers.

  Melissa slid back into her shoes and snatched her car keys off the end table in the entry hall. She knew she wasn’t crazy. Though she couldn’t remember it, she’d spoken to someone at the other end of the phone line.

  Now she wanted to find out who.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lori sat with BJ on the floor of the living room, poised over the half-completed layout of a small Lego city they’d constructed while watching Monsters Inc. on Blu-ray. She enjoyed babysitting the boy. He was well behaved, fun to watch, and boasted an impressive imagination. He’d not only made a collection of buildings and vehicles from the construction blocks, but had also given them certain roles to fulfill within their fabricated community, including a police force, a taxi service, a grocery, and a postal system. Lori found that to be the funniest bit of all, especially since he claimed all the citizens were dinosaurs.

  While BJ finished up the last touches on his latest creation, she glanced out the window to where the light had been replaced with darkness.

  Getting up, she said, “Okay, trooper, almost time for bed.”

  BJ looked shocked. “No way. I’m not tired.”

  She frowned. “Sorry, the rules are the rules. I’ll bet once you’re under the covers, you’ll fall—”

  “I’m not going to bed until my dad gets home,” he interrupted.

  He glanced to the hall leading to the staircase, and she noted the unmistakable look of fear in his eyes.

  She smiled. “I think I know where this is going. Are you afraid of monsters coming out of the closet, like in the movie?”

  He simply stared at her.

  “I thought so,” she said. “Well, there’s nothing to fear, because I’m a federally-registered monster exterminator with a black belt in butt-kicking. Just tell me where to find this goon, and I’ll scare him so bad he’ll jump out of his underpants!”

  He didn’t smile like she’d hoped, but he also didn’t resist when she took him by the hand and started toward the stairs.

  Moments later they stood in the middle of BJ’s room, the young boy at her side. They faced his closed closet door, ready for a showdown with whatever lay within.

  Without saying a word, the two attempted to perceive any faint noise that might give away an interloper hidden within the walk-in closet. In that labored calm, the empty house downstairs seemed miles away. Lori marveled at the lack of common sounds she expected to hear in such a quiet background: the settling noise of the house’s foundation, crickets chirping on the outside windowsill, a wind-rattled screen.

  Yet, nothing.

  “Well, kid, what do you think?” she asked.

  In no more than a whisper, he said, “I guess he’s not here right now.”

  She squeezed the boy’s hand, holding back a smile that threatened to destroy her look of sincerity. She couldn’t help it. He looked so serious, so ardent in his belief that a supernatural beast occupied his closet. She remembered her own childhood years, recalling the nights spent with her favorite blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders, convinced a slime-slicked crocodile dwelled in the darkness below the box-springs. Now she knew the phantom creature never existed, but at the time, it seemed like a tangible, living thing. She understood how BJ could believe this fiendish whatever-it-was occupied his world.

  “Sometimes I hear him moving in there,” the boy told her, speaking in the same quivering whisper.

  She squeezed his hand again when it trembled in her palm.

  “So who is this doofus? He’s obviously too scared to show himself with me here.”

  She listened quietly as BJ told her about his fictitious tormenter. It took some time. At first he refused, saying if he revealed anything about the monster it would hurt his dad and sister. But after her reassurance that most monsters peed their pants at the simple mention of her name, she finally got him to open up.

  He told her the creature had pushed him in the pool the other day and threatened him to keep quiet about it. If he ever told anyone what really happened or even mentioned he’d seen his tormentor, the beast promised to punish his family.

  Now she understood. Paul had told her about the pool incident when he’d first shown her around the house, pointing out the new safety locks he’d installed on the sliding glass door that opened onto the back deck. BJ had obviously concocted this evil being to deal with his guilt over breaking the rule of not going near the pool without supervision, but now the being seemed unquestionably real to him.

  She knew it probably wasn’t healthy to support the falsehood’s existence, but she decided to humor the boy in order to help him get to bed. She’d simply rely on the same imagination that spawned the ghoul to destroy it.

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t hear anything in there right now, which probably means he chickened out and ran when he heard I’d be coming over. These guys know how dangerous I am. In fact, he probably won’t ever come back now that he knows we live in the same neighborhood. I’ll check just to be sure, though.”

  BJ nodded but didn’t come any closer.

  With a wink of encouragement, she opened the door and clicked on the light. Clothes hung in a line along a rack to the right, while shelves from floor to ceiling held various toys on the left.

  “Wow! Check out this stash. Santa must clock some serious overtime when he vi
sits your house each year.”

  He didn’t reply but came a little closer, halting at the doorframe. He watched while she searched through the clothes, under stuffed toy animals, and along the uppermost shelves.

  “No goblins in here, kiddo.”

  The boy’s features remained gray. “He stays back there,” he said, pointing past her. “Back in the crawlspace, that’s where he lives.”

  She looked to a second door at the far wall that no doubt led to an attic or storage space behind the walls between BJ’s room and his father’s study. “Okay, let’s check it out,” she answered. She crossed to the entry without pause, showing him he had nothing to fear.

  Her hand gripped the knob, turned it, and for the first time in their silent surroundings, Lori Hanlon heard a noise.

  Something behind the door moved.

  She’d heard a soft, almost undetectable scuff on the other side, like a cardboard box nudged over a wooden floor.

  The hairs along the back of her neck prickled and a shiver rose from her bones. She held onto the doorknob, frozen, imagining a masked burglar crouching in the shadows rather than BJ’s monster.

  When she didn’t move, BJ took several steps away. “What? What is it?” he asked, looking small and poised to run.

  Lori smiled at him over her shoulder, and her fear fled back to a rational level. BJ’s horror stories had obviously stirred up her own childish fears, and the noise—a settling noise, no doubt—had startled her only because it had been so quiet earlier. If not for their talk about ghosts and goblins, it probably wouldn’t have registered at all.

  “Just giving him a chance to run,” she told him.

  She opened the attic door and turned on the light.

  Only a little larger than the closet itself but with a ceiling that reached high into the rafters, the tight storage space made Lori feel like a mouse in a coffin box. Trapped by the insulation, the hot air of the place warmed her lungs with each inhalation, filling her sinus with the scent of dry wood and dust.

  Though the bare bulb over the doorframe did little to illuminate the furthest reaches of the room, no assailant lurked behind the various stacks of boxes or among the overhead crossbeams. She spotted several boxes labeled “Christmas decorations,” three sets of different length skis and poles, and a movable clothes rack with three sizes of winter clothing—sweaters, jackets, snowmobile suits, gloves, hats, and boots—but no monsters.

  “All clear in here,” she said. She turned off the light and closed the door. “See, just like I told you. When those jerks hear me coming, they pack up and head for the hills.”

  BJ looked dubious. “He’s gone?”

  “He sure is,” she confirmed, “which means you can go to sleep and dream of saving the universe with Indiana Jones and The X-Men.”

  “What if he comes back?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll mess around here anymore. But if he does, which I know he won’t, I’ll teach you a little lesson on how to get rid of him on your own.”

  He looked intrigued. “How?”

  “Easy. First of all, what makes a monster scary?”

  He made an exaggerated thinking face and said, “They’re jus’ scary.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. They look scary.”

  “Right. So, if you don’t look at them, they can’t be scary.”

  “Huh?”

  She walked him over to the bed, helped him onto the mattress, and slipped the covers around him. He looked so innocent. “If you happen to spot a monster, you can take away its power by closing your eyes and not looking at it. All you need to do is think of something else, something you really, really like: Saturday morning cartoons, what you want for your birthday, a favorite candy. Concentrate super-duper hard on ten good things, and while you’re doing that, the monster gets bored and leaves.”

  “That really works?”

  “I’d bet you a whole bag of peanut M&Ms it does.”

  Per BJ’s request, she left the bedside lamp on and didn’t close the door all the way when she finally left the room. She pulled the door halfway shut and caught him yawning when she chanced one last look, guessing he’d be sound asleep by the time she got back downstairs.

  Later, despite all the reassurance she’d used to help the boy overcome his fears, Lori found herself making a quick tour of the home’s first floor, turning on all the lights while she did.

  CHAPTER 26

  It took Melissa almost thirty minutes to reach the Corcoran border, time she spent mentally sifting through her conversation with Frank, looking for the nugget of information that would justify the long drive or condemn it as an unwarranted waste of time.

  The piercing sensation that had driven her out of the house still needled her, spurring her onward. Cop’s instinct, she tried to tell herself, being a true believer in the human mind’s capacity for perception. But was it? Never before had she experienced an intuitive vibe so strong, so undeniable.

  She turned off Highway 55, onto County Road 19.

  Melissa pressed the gas pedal a little farther toward the floorboards, racing across the seemingly absent countryside that now appeared in the form of a dark swath under the nighttime heavens. She grimaced when she passed the Pattersons’ land along the way. The cheery yellow house seemed drab and lifeless now, no doubt its repose made unduly dour in her mind by the knowledge that nothing living dwelled there.

  Several minutes later—after turning off 19 onto County Road 50—Melissa came to the long avenue of the Damerows’ driveway. The home itself, a two-story lodge-style building with decorative stonework along its base, sat well removed from the street, situated on a large and beautifully landscaped yard. In daylight the grounds had the appearance of a professionally groomed golf course.

  Melissa parked along the spacious turnabout drive set before a wide three-car garage, once again trying, without success, to convince herself she’d wasted her time chasing a weak lead.

  Despite the late hour, the home itself glowed bright. Security lights illuminated the front of the house and walkway, and multiple windows glowed from within.

  “It’s about time,” Melissa told herself.

  Crickets hiding in the low bushes along the brick sidewalk silenced their singing on her approach. She rang the bell, following up with a knock on the huge, brass-handled wood door. She waited.

  After a minute she tried the bell again and knocked louder.

  Lights could be on a timer.

  After trying the door a third time, Melissa returned to her car and retrieved a black, four-cell flashlight from the trunk. She left her vehicle and started toward the far end of the garage, intent on doing a visual inspection of all the home’s key entry points, searching for any signs of disturbance.

  She rounded the garage, one hand guiding the flashlight’s beam, probing it through the darkness, while the other rested on the butt of her holstered pistol. She hadn’t worn her bulletproof vest, but the touch of her weapon afforded her some mental armor in the form of confidence.

  The Damerows’ ranch—or hobby farm, or whatever it was—sat alone, surrounded by night-cloaked forest and pastures rather than by neighboring homes. The darkness beyond reach of the security lamps appeared uncut and without end, offering a prowler easy concealment.

  By the time she’d reached the backyard, she didn’t simply rest her hand on the sidearm; she gripped it.

  Moving along the home’s contours, Melissa panned her flashlight around the shrubs and outer walls, unable to locate anything peculiar until she reached the back of the house. There, an impressive wood deck jutted off the main building, one large enough to accommodate a massive gas grill, a shaded picnic table, and an octagonal Jacuzzi. Melissa stepped up to a sliding glass door that connected the deck to the house and peered inside.

  Beyond the parted blinds waited a spacious dining room and an open-air kitchen with appliance-stocked counters. Decorative ceiling fixtures lit both rooms, illuminat
ing twin plate settings arranged kitty-corner on the dining table, each awaiting a dinner that apparently never got underway.

  She looked to the kitchen: two amber-colored glass pots of mixed vegetables and potatoes sat on the stovetop; a loaf of French bread waited beside a cutting board; a bottle of wine that had yet to be opened stood at the far end of one counter.

  Everything looked like a meal was in the process of being completed, except no power indicators glowed on the range’s settings panel and no steam rose from the two pots. Melissa couldn’t confirm it from where she stood, but she guessed a main dish of some type lay uncooked inside the stove.

  She strained to see deeper into the house, looking for further irregularities that signified the kitchen scene evidence of an unnatural transgression. The far end of the dining room opened into either an entry hall or a living room, but that area vanished into a deep, concealing blackness.

  Resuming her search, Melissa warned herself not to jump to conclusions. There could’ve been any number of reasons for what you just saw. Just because someone takes off before starting dinner doesn’t mean that a crime’s been committed. Besides, a big place like this must have some kind of security service looking out for it.

  The thought caused her to stop in mid-stride. What the hell am I doing out here? Just look at yourself, lurking around like some paranoid lunatic! And all because of a stupid phone call. I must really be losing it. Imagine what the owners of this place would think if they come back and find me slinking around their backyard.

  She shook her head at her unprofessional conduct during the last hour and fearfully wondered if the stress of her job had finally caught up with her.

  Turning, she glanced back at the house and focused on a darkened ground-level window located between two evenly trimmed bushes. She spotted a small sign in the upper right corner.

  “Ten bucks says that’s a security company’s ID sticker.”

  She directed her light at the emblem.

  And it illuminated a face staring back at her through the glass!