Doorbells at Dusk

by Josh Malerman

  As Lisa’s foot landed on the first of the cathedral-style stone steps, a loud clunk and dazzling light froze everyone in their places. Carlos blinked until his eyes adjusted. A spotlight under a second-floor landing illuminated the steps and the drive.

  No one moved. No one made a sound. Carlos thought he saw a flicker of orange pass by one of the dark windows to the left of the door, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving him wondering if it had just been some residual effect of the spotlight’s flash.

  “Sensor light,” Lisa whispered. “I don’t hear anyone inside.”

  Carlos couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. By all appearances, they’d stumbled upon the Holy Grail of break-ins. That was, if the residents truly weren’t home. “Maybe we should just leave it,” he said.

  “God!” Breck waved his arms with melodramatic exasperation. “You sound like such a pussy.”

  “I can’t see anything inside,” Samson said, appearing so suddenly beside Carlos that Carlos’s heart jumped. “It’s like the windows are tinted or something,” he continued, shrugging. “Everything’s black. Weird.”

  “Security?” Carlos asked.

  “None I can see.”

  “No one this rich would leave his house unprotected.”

  Breck jumped in. “It’s not like we’re in downtown Detroit here.” He spun around, arms out. “This place is old, like at least a century old, before they had things like alarm systems and cameras. I bet the dumb shits didn’t put any in because it might ruin the ambiance . . . or whatever.”

  “Guys,” Lisa whined. “Am I ringing the doorbell or not?”

  Carlos and Breck simultaneously gave different answers.

  Lisa huffed and turned back to the door. She studied it for a moment. “Guys, there’s no doorbell.”

  “Use the knocker thing,” Breck said.

  A brass knocker in the shape of a gargoyle’s head, with cruel eyes and gnashing teeth, sat in the center of the door just over Lisa’s pigtails. A thick ring hung from its nostrils. Lisa grabbed it and swung it against the wood.

  A dull thud echoed through the still air, then nothing. They waited in silence.

  “Should I knock again?” she asked.

  “Samson,” Carlos said. “Get the crowbar.”

  Before Samson could take a step toward the van, the door creaked open. A little girl in a wrinkled white nightgown stood behind it, her skin as pale as her clothing. Her feet were bare. She looked to be seven or eight. She rubbed her eyes as if the moonlight were too much for them. Her skin shifted with each rub, loose upon her bones as if she’d recently lost a lot of weight.

  “Trick or treat!” Lisa shouted, thrusting her pillowcase out in front of her.

  The little girl stared blankly then blinked. Slowly, a grin wormed its way over her lips then full-on excitement as she jumped and clapped. “Oh! Trick or treat! Halloween!” As she looked left then right, her excitement drained. She pouted and cast her eyes downward. “But I don’t have any candy.”

  “That’s okay, dear,” Lisa said. “Are your parents home?”

  “They should be, unless they’ve gone out for Halloween. They usually bring home candy for us. Sometimes they keep it all for themselves, though.”

  “Us?” Lisa asked. “Anyone else home?”

  “Just me and my brother. He’s sick and very little, so I stay home with him.” The girl stared at Lisa’s pillowcase then at Lisa. “You have candy. Will you give us some?”

  Lisa smiled. “Sure.”

  “Yay!” The little girl curtsied. “I’m Sophie. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Li—” Lisa cinched her pillowcase shut as the little girl’s eyes drifted toward it. “Can we come in?”

  “Okay.” Sophie ran off into the darkness of the house, leaving the door open behind her.

  Breck shrugged. “That was easy.”

  He started inside, but Carlos again held him back. “No one gets hurt,” he warned. “Particularly not the kids.” He pointed at the knife. “So put that thing away.”

  Breck scowled but obeyed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Flashlights,” Carlos said. “And be ready. The parents may be home.”

  They entered the house with flashlights drawn and weapons at the ready, as if they were a band of trained soldiers and not a gang of armed criminals. Their beams illuminated old portraits, cobwebbed mantels, and furniture that looked as though it hadn’t been dusted in ages. With every other step, what sounded like tiny bones crunched beneath Carlos’s boot. When he aimed his beam at the floor, the light repelled skittering black insects that vanished under furniture or into cracks in the floorboards.

  The filth reminded him of his home back in the projects. If the outside of the house had looked recently neglected, the inside looked outright forgotten. The place looked unlived in, which didn’t seem right if people lived there—at least four of them, according to the girl. Squatters? He paused. Something else?

  He was about to voice his concern when Breck spoke. “I’m no expert, but this shit looks old. And expensive. I bet we could sell it to Ritchie.”

  Ritchie was Carlos’s antique dealer, and he had no qualms with brokering stolen goods. As much as Carlos hated to admit it, Breck was right. Despite the lack of care its owners had shown it, the place was a gold mine. It reeked of wealth and antiquity. “We don’t have room in the van for—”

  A candelabra-shaped chandelier hummed above as the bulbs it held flickered. At once, they flashed brightly. An explosion of glass followed, plunging them back into darkness.

  Carlos’s finger jittered on the trigger of his shotgun. He raised the stock under his shoulder.

  “My, my,” a man called from the next room. He chuckled. “We must really get that fixed, darling. Our guests must think us paupers. Such modern delicacies, necessities of a modern world.”

  “Keeping up appearances, my love, means keeping up with the times, I’m afraid,” a woman answered, tittering as a small flame danced across the pitch-black of the adjacent room.

  “So wise you are, my dear,” the man answered. “So wise.”

  One after another, candles illuminated the darker reaches of the next room. In it, Carlos saw a long table made of fine wood, mahogany if he had to guess. Its legs were ornately carved dragons. China so fine that it shimmered in spite of its disuse decorated the mahogany surface. Masterfully crafted chairs circled the table. Something scurried under the edge of a plate.

  “Do come in. Come in,” the man said, a candle lighting up in his hands as if by magic. “It’s been so long since we’ve had guests. Welcome!”

  Carlos didn’t move. Samson looked to him for guidance. No one made a sound.

  The man stepped closer. He wore a penguin suit, complete with long tails, a frilly shirt, white gloves, and a bow tie. The suit hung from his frame, two sizes too big. He floated over to Lisa, causing her to take a step back. “Forgive me. Where are my manners?”

  Carlos’s eyes adjusted to the candlelight, which illuminated the room with a dull orange glow. He felt as if he were inside a jack-o’-lantern. Other than the old clothes and the fact that he didn’t seem alarmed that four home invaders were standing in his dining room, the man appeared somewhat normal and defenseless. If something was off about him, Carlos couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Still, goosebumps rose on Carlos’s forearms. What felt like a millipede’s thousand legs tickled the back of his neck.

  “I’m Oliver,” the man said, his face even paler than the little girl’s. His skin sagged, and white bumps speckled the purple rashes which circled his eyes. In the flickering light, the bumps appeared to be moving.

  Oliver waved a hand to his side, and a woman seemed to teleport there. “And this is my wife, Veronica.”

  Veronica wore a black sequin gown with a tapered fringe that hung to her shins. She’d paired the gown with matching sleeve gloves and a headband which sparkled with diamonds. Lisa
stared at them with eyes that sparkled nearly as brightly.

  At first glance, Carlos thought Veronica was beautiful—if he didn’t look too closely. But when he did, the closer examination revealed similar ailments to those afflicting her husband and child.

  Leprosy? Carlos guessed. We shouldn’t be here.

  Together, the husband and wife looked like a couple headed to a 1920’s gala. Carlos assumed they were dressed up for a Halloween party. If that was the case, were they leaving the children home alone without a babysitter? No matter how he added it all up, nothing made any sense.

  Oliver’s eyes met Carlos’s stare. “We were heading out for some Halloween mischief, but it appears the party has come to us this year instead, doesn’t it, dear?”

  Veronica hooked her arm around her husband’s. “It does, my love. It does indeed. Aren’t they delightful?”

  Oliver smacked his lips together. “Delightful, mmm, yes.”

  Lisa yelped, her hand recoiling. “So cold!”

  Carlos hadn’t even noticed that Sophie was in the room, much less that she had reached for Lisa’s hand. The girl was like a phantom, moving unseen and unheard.

  “Ah, I see you’ve met our precious daughter, Sophie.” Oliver puffed out his chest, beaming with pride. “That just leaves our boy, Junior.” He swung his arm back.

  A toddler sat in a high chair at the far end of the table. A tattered and filthy rag circled his head, covering his eyes. Carlos hadn’t noticed the boy before that moment. The child seemed to have materialized out of thin air, possessing an ethereal quality which matched his sister’s. Fork in hand, the boy pounded on the table.

  “Enough of this,” Breck said, unsheathing his knife. He stepped up to Oliver and pressed its point under his neck. The man’s skin folded over it like laundry hung out to dry. “Since we’re making introductions, let me introduce you to my pointy friend here. Knife meet Oliver. Oliver”—he pressed the point into the man’s skin—”meet Knife.”

  “Delightful!” Oliver’s smile broadened. “Aren’t they delightful, love?”

  “They certainly are, dear,” Veronica answered.

  Lisa held out her hand. “The headband, por favor.”

  “Oh, this thing?” The woman pulled the headband off. Like strings of glue, the skin beneath it stretched and snapped. Patches of hair hung in matted blotches around the band. A horizontal line of raw red tissue ran across Veronica’s forehead.

  She handed the band to Lisa. “Go ahead. Try it on.” She laughed. “You know, there was a time when I wouldn’t have let the likes of you anywhere near my jewels. But our wealth hardly seems as important now as it once did. Still, it has its uses.”

  “Keeps the electricity running,” Oliver said. Then as if realizing his gaff, he laughed. “Oh ho! Guess we forgot to pay that bill, honey.”

  Lisa backed away, her nose twitching in disgust. It took another second for the rank odor, like that of rotten pork, to reach Carlos’s nostrils.

  Removing the knife from Oliver’s neck, Breck grabbed the headband and tossed it into his pillowcase. “That’s a good start. Now, what else you got?”

  “I propose a trade.” Oliver swiped a palm through the air, his movement so quick and effortless it was hardly noticeable.

  Silence.

  Then screaming. Breck fell to his knees, his hand covering his right eye. Blood oozed under his palm, running onto his bite mask.

  Fast as lightning, little Sophie snatched something from the floor and shoved it into her mouth. Junior began to cry.

  “Sophie!” Veronica scolded. “It was our selfishness that got us into this predicament to begin with. You know Junior needs those more than you. Now he’ll only have three matching sets to choose from.”

  “Sorry,” Sophie mumbled, her mouth full.

  Carlos took in the scene. Breck on the floor, sobbing and convulsing. Sophie licking her lips. The blind kid, cloth gone and empty sockets revealed, wailing and pushing his chair away from the table. Sweating, he pulled his mask off and tossed it onto the floor. The pieces of the puzzle were coming together slowly, yet he had no idea what picture they were forming. He was too horrified to move, too shocked to scream.

  Samson recovered first. He raised his gun and put two bullets into Oliver’s chest.

  The blast sent Oliver staggering back against the wall. He slid down it, ending in a sitting position on the floor.

  Veronica pressed her hands against her cheeks, her mouth dropping in awe. “Wonderful!”

  “What?” Lisa asked, stepping aimlessly backward, her lips quivering.

  “Aren’t they marvelous, dear?” Oliver stood and dusted himself off. “One for each of us.”

  Junior crawled over to Breck, jabbed his stubby thumb and forefinger into the man’s remaining eye, and plucked it out cleanly.

  Sophie snatched the eyeball from his hand.

  “Sophie!” Veronica scolded. “You give that back to your brother right now!”

  The ghastly little girl pouted. “But I like the eyes!” Nevertheless, she did as she was told.

  Junior took the eye and fitted it into his own empty socket. Carlos gagged as the eye blinked. He tucked his shotgun against his shoulder, not knowing where to aim it.

  Sophie knocked her brother aside and lunged at Breck, her mouth opened wide to expose row after row of sharp, needlelike teeth. She sank them into Breck’s collar. The man’s agony echoed throughout the room.

  Samson sprang into action, firing rounds into Sophie’s head. Pulpy gore spattered the floor. Veronica leapt toward Samson, but Carlos snap-fired. The shotgun’s blast altered the woman’s course midair. She crashed down and slid across the floor but quickly sprang back up to her feet.

  Examining the massive wound to her stomach, she tsked. “This was my favorite dress.”

  “Let’s go!” Carlos yelled, grabbing Lisa by her elbow.

  “What about Breck?” she asked, clearly shell-shocked.

  He spun her around and, with a reluctant glance over her shoulder, saw the children devouring a soon-to-be, if not already, dead member of his crew.

  “Where are you going?” Oliver called from somewhere behind them as they ran. “You don’t have to go. You’re welcome here.”

  Samson reached the door first, but he was still struggling to open it by the time Carlos and Lisa caught up. “It’s . . . stuck.” He strained.

  “Try the lock,” Carlos said, turning to cover their backs.

  “It’s not . . . the goddamn . . . lock.”

  “Stay back!” Carlos warned as Oliver charged. He blasted the man in the center of his chest. As Carlos reached into his pocket to reload, Veronica was upon him. She grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him against the wall. As he collapsed, his head hit the floor so hard his vision blurred.

  Struggling to stay conscious, he saw Lisa draw a Taser from her bag and fire it at Veronica. Carlos lifted a hand in warning, but he was too late. Sophie sank her teeth into Lisa’s calf. The stun gun fell from Lisa’s hand, and she followed it, kicking at the girl.

  Carlos passed out as the sound of gunfire ceased and the screaming began in earnest.

  ***

  He awoke to find a familiar face staring down at him. “Lisa?”

  The face smiled, exposing rows of needle-sharp teeth. “She’s very pretty,” Sophie said from behind Lisa’s face. She smoothed out a wrinkle and tucked the skin closely around her eyes, hiding the rotting muscle beneath. “I’m lucky to have such a good one to wear.”

  “Now, now,” Veronica admonished as she worked an iron over a board. “We don’t play with our food.”

  Carlos tried to move but found himself tied to a chair. Samson sat bound beside him, still unconscious. Lisa’s headless body lay naked and sprawled out on the table. Huge swaths of skin were missing. The smell of sizzling meat beneath the iron made Carlos’s stomach roil.

  “What are you?” he asked. “Why are you doing this?”

  “The Japanese have a name for
us,” Oliver said, sitting across from Carlos. “But then again, they think we just go around eating corpses, which is so last century.”

  “Corpses means dead people, Daddy!” Sophie blurted, meat and sinew filling the gaps in her smile.

  “That’s right, dear.” Oliver laughed and leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. His mouth formed a thin line, and he whispered, “We found a way to outrun death and the hell that awaited us. Unfortunately, it requires . . . replacement parts sometimes. We are so happy the holiday brought us all together.”

  With a long black scythe of a pinky nail, Oliver cut into his forehead along the hairline. He circled his face, down the jawline, around the chin, then back up the other side. Black blood oozed from the cut, the smell of infection filling the room.

  “You see, when you look like this . . . ” He peeled off his face and tossed it to Junior, who snatched it up greedily. Maggots wormed their way in and out of Oliver’s exposed face, his true face, purple and gray like rotting hamburger. “Let’s just say we had to find a way to reinvent ourselves.”

  Veronica cackled. “A way to blend in.”

  Oliver stood and walked around the table toward Carlos, larvae falling from his face like rice at a wedding. “My wife is partial to your face. I think it’ll serve me well for the next decade or so.”

  “No!” Carlos begged, squirming and kicking as Oliver’s pinky nail dug into his skin and began its circle.

  VIGIL

  Chad Lutzke

  As we watched for more bodies, Mrs. Ashton handed me a cup of steaming coffee. It was my second cup that morning, this one better than the first. The first was from my own kitchen. From that percolating piece of shit I couldn’t bear to get rid of. Helen loved that thing. But I think she’d love Mr. Coffee even more, with its self-brewing timer and controlled temperature plate. I imagined Mrs. Ashton brewed with a Mr. Coffee. I’d have to ask her. Maybe I’d break down and get one after all.

  There were a dozen other people standing around, sipping from cups and watching the abandoned house on Summerdale. Just about every surrounding neighbor—except Mrs. Chisholm, her husband still hadn’t built that wheelchair ramp, so she sat in her chair at the bay window. I could see her lips moving, as though she was trying to make conversation, though nobody could hear her. Or maybe she was just going on to herself—or to God—about the poor kids being pulled from the ground at 201 Summerdale.