Campbell Wood

by Al Sarrantonio

  If there was somebody in there, she could always scream when she found out.

  A scratch sounded.

  Then a creak like bending floorboards.

  "Is anybody there?" Kaymie called out in a loud whisper.

  Silence.

  "Come out or I'll scream."

  Silence. Then a scratch.

  Creak.

  Slowly, she slid her legs out from under the comforter and over the side of the bed. Her furry yellow slippers were there. She wiggled her feet into them, all the time keeping her eyes on the closet. There was a Snoopy nightlight in a wall socket across the room, next to the closet; it threw a circle of light against the wall and gave a dim, dreamy luminosity to the rest of the room. She'd be able to see right away if the door to the closet began to slide open.

  She stood out of bed, frozen in position, her slippered feet on the smooth linoleum floor, her eyes riveted like a rabbit's to the closet door.

  Scratch.

  Slowly, very slowly, she made her way across the room. The door to her bedroom was to the right; it was open a crack and she could see a sliver of hallway outside.

  So easy to run out and call for Mom and Dad.

  Scratch.

  The closet drew closer. Kaymie's heart was pounding, and her breath came short. A perverse thrill went through her. While she was frightened, she could also see herself being frightened from a distance, as if she were in a horror movie.

  It would be so easy to run.

  The closet was just three steps away. She reached out her hand for the door, in slow motion, just as there was a loud cracking sound behind it.

  Her hand and heart froze.

  After a tick of silence, the door began to open by itself. Kaymie's legs were paralyzed with fear. By itself, the door slid shut again.

  With a sudden, almost uncontrolled jerk of her hand Kaymie threw the door all the way open. A fearful anticipation went through her, and she jumped back a step.

  Nothing flew out at her.

  But the light was dim. Someone could be pressed against the back wall, out of sight.

  He could be back there, waiting for her to go back to sleep.

  Waiting like the man in Clara's room, with wild eyes and a knife in his hand.

  She turned from the closet and with a quick move turned on the lamp on the nightstand next to her bed. The room brightened, blinding her momentarily. In that moment she imagined she felt a hand on her shoulder, a hand cold and hard. She squinted against the new light: no one was there.

  And the closet, the part she could see, was still empty.

  It was a walk-in closet, five feet deep with shelves across the back. One whole side was illuminated now, but the sliding door made a shadowland of the other half.

  Kaymie put her head cautiously into the cubicle, holding her breath.

  The tiny room was empty.

  She moved with care to the back, looking for what could have made the sounds. There was silence. Something sounded behind her and she turned with a gasp. It was only a small box falling over. She picked it up and placed it squarely in position.

  There was nothing obvious that could have made the other sounds. Most everything was still in moving cartons. Kaymie turned over a few shoeboxes and a carton of her comics and books on the back shelves, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

  As she was replacing the last of the shoeboxes there was a crack overhead. Kaymie looked up to see a slat of wood from the top shelf above her breaking away. She turned her head aside, narrowly avoiding it as it fell into her box of books.

  She picked it up and examined it, stretching up to see where it fit in the shelf. There was nothing up there in that spot that could have weighed it down. The piece of shelving looked as though it had been sawed off, the break was so clean. It was almost perfectly rectangular. Could a mouse do this? She didn't know. But just to make sure she brought a crate over to stand on and examined the whole length of the shelf. She laid the piece of wood at the back and climbed down.

  Kaymie stepped out of the closet and slid the door firmly shut behind her. She was about to get back into bed when her dollhouse, the only thing in the room she had unpacked, caught her eye.

  This was her special possession, the only thing of her grandmother's that she owned. Her grandmother had made her grandfather promise that if Mark ever got married and had a daughter, he would give this house to her.

  It was beautiful. The whole front of the structure swung open on two hidden hinges, revealing neatly decorated rooms within. There were three floors counting the attic, which Kaymie used to store her extra furniture. There were doorways between the rooms and exactly built staircases leading from floor to floor.

  Kaymie found herself staring at the front of the house as if she had never seen it before. There was something about it she had never noticed before. Something—

  Kaymie suddenly realized that her dollhouse was an exact miniature of their new house, right down to the little window in the attic and the front and back porches.

  "Wow," she said under her breath. She swung open the front of the house and began to tinker, straightening things out and moving them a little bit this way or that. She moved a few pieces in the attic to get at her favorite part, a tiny secret cupboard that was built into a hollowed-out section of one wall.

  Suddenly she yawned.

  I must be more tired than I thought.

  She closed up the house and climbed back into bed. A strange dream came to her. She was lying in bed, and unknown faces drifted out of the open closet door at her. It was a colorful dream. Trees grew out of the closet, twisting like snakes out and around the room. The room became a forest of trees, all moving around each other and around her bed. The trees began to part, and figures floated toward her from the closet, one after another. They were all staring at her. They circled her bed and then moved off into the forest. She was alone again, and the trees began to move once more, but differently this time. She saw that where the closet was they were forming a dark, deep tunnel, and way off down the tunnel a figure was coming toward her.

  A cold finger traced up her back. This figure was wearing a cloak. She could not make out the figure's face, even though it came closer and closer. Kaymie saw that the figure's head was covered with a cowl. The figure moved in a floating, languid motion, as if it were under water.

  It came close to her, right up to her bed, and leaned over. Kaymie shrank back, but it leaned down close to her face. Kaymie saw that it was wearing a crown over its hood, an almost imperceptible thing of spun gold with tiny sparkling diamonds in it.

  The folds of material over the specter’s face began to fall away.

  Kaymie reached up with shaking fingers and pulled the last fold back.

  There was nothing there but blackness. Kaymie screamed then, and the cloak spun out of her hands and around and around, at a higher and higher speed. It shot back down the tunnel toward where the closet had been. The trees closed down around the tunnel, and it disappeared in interlocking branches.

  The trees began to close in around Kaymie, climbing closer, twisting layer by twisting layer. Her bed disappeared beneath her, the wooden pieces joining the forest around her, and the other parts, the mattress and covers, pulled under and through the forest and away, crushed and consumed. She was cradled by tiny humping, twining branches.

  The roof of the forest closed down around her. Kaymie found it difficult to breathe; then she could not breathe at all, as the wood closed coffin-like over her. She gasped, pulling into her lungs only the sickly sweet smell of pine sap and rotting foliage. She tried to scream but could not.

  Darkness dropped down around her, and the dream drifted away. The night, now dreamless, moved on.

  4

  The rising sun shining through his window woke Seth.

  "Kaymie?" he called in a sleepy whisper, not realizing for a moment that she wasn't in the room with him. For the first time in his life he had slept alone, in his own bedroom, and the feel
ing was disorienting. "Kaymie?" he called again, and then he remembered where he was. The shadows on the walls were different in this place, and there were boxes piled all around.

  He slipped out of bed.

  No Kaymie. For a long time he had dreamed of having his own room, and now that it had happened he didn't know if he liked it. The house had made such strange noises all night, creakings and cracks, different from the noises in the Bronx. Also, everything was so big here, and he didn't have any friends . . . Two days ago he had been excited to come here but now he didn't know if he liked it. The floor was cold, too.

  He walked back to the bed and reached under the pillow, pulling out a frayed green stuffed animal that looked as if it was supposed to be a frog or maybe a toad. "Augie," he said to it, looking quickly at the door to make sure that Kaymie wasn't there to make fun of him. She said that eight was too old to carry around a stuffed animal. He had had to hide Augie all the time in the Bronx, and had even been afraid to take him out last night in case she came into the room by mistake. But she hadn't, and now that he had his own room for sure it looked as though he could do whatever he wanted. So Augie would stay. Well, maybe hidden under the covers.

  Holding the frog by one short, tattered leg he walked to the window and looked out. It was just getting really light. Such a big house, so much lawn, enough to play whiffle ball or touch football on. His eyes wandered to the tree a little to the right of his window, where the kid had fallen from last night. He clutched Augie a little tighter, seeing how far down it was to the ground, and then his eyes wandered from the base of the tree on across the front lawn—

  Was that someone standing on the sidewalk in front of the house? He bent closer to the glass. Yes, someone was down there. It looked like a kid his own age. The boy was standing on the sidewalk, his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at the house. Just standing there. At first Seth thought that was strange, but then another thought entered his mind that obliterated everything else. Maybe he's waiting for me. Maybe the kid had seen him yesterday and wanted to make friends with him. Maybe there were kids around here like Chuckie and Bill from the Bronx, and he'd be able to have new friends right away.

  He knocked on the window, trying to get the boy's attention, but he just stood there staring at the house. Seth reached up to the window, trying to open it. It hesitated, stuck with the new coat of paint that had been put on before they moved in, then all at once it slid up.

  Seth leaned out, seeing now that the kid had a light blue jacket on and black hair.

  "Hey!" he shouted. The kid looked up. He made a move as if to lift one hand out of his jacket pocket, to wave, but then he just stood there staring up at Seth.

  "I'll be right down!" Seth called. He shut the window and quickly dressed, pulling on a shirt and jeans and struggling with his sneakers.

  As he ran into the kitchen he saw his father, fully dressed, moving around. "Hey, where you going?" he called as Seth tried to run by.

  "Out," Seth said, "I want to meet the new kid." He tried to move past but his father put a hand on his arm.

  "Hold it there, friend. What new kid? It's seven o'clock in the morning."

  "He's waiting for me. I want to meet him before he goes away." He put a pleading look in his eyes. "Please?"

  His father had turned back to the pots and pans, preoccupied. "Okay, but don't leave the front of the house." He turned his attention to Seth again. "I mean that. And come back in a half hour for breakfast."

  When Seth opened the front door the kid was still there, in the same position, his hands in his pockets.

  Seth approached and asked, "What's your name?"

  The boy said nothing, his hands digging deeper into his jacket.

  "You live around here?" Seth tried.

  "Yes," the kid said in a low voice. He pulled a hand out and pointed down the street, to a large green house. "I'm Bobby," he said, his eyes on the ground.

  "I'm Seth. What grade you in?"

  "Fourth."

  "I'll be in fourth next year," Seth said, taking the offensive. Since he was younger he had to let Bobby know he wasn't too young to play with.

  "School any good here?"

  Bobby shrugged, his face coming up and a quick smile crossing it and then leaving. "Okay, I guess."

  "Do you have your own room?" Seth offered, trying another topic.

  Bobby nodded. "My brother's is bigger." He looked past Seth, back at the house, and then up at the trees around it.

  Seth's heart sank a little. It was obvious now that Bobby had not come just to meet him. He was more interested in the house, or something else.

  "Hear about that kid that fell out of the tree last night?" Seth asked.

  "Yeah," Bobby answered. He was silent again, his eyes tracking the trees around the house, and then the roof of the house.

  Seth was getting annoyed.

  "What are you looking for?" he asked.

  Bobby seemed to want to ignore him for a moment, and then he shrugged.

  "I heard my brother talking," he explained.

  Seth just looked at him. If the kids in this town were like this he knew he wasn't going to like it here.

  "Want to play?" Seth said.

  Bobby stared at him.

  "Not allowed," he answered, again looking past Seth. "They told us to stay away from you."

  "Who?"

  Bobby shrugged once more. "Everybody. My mom and dad. I heard my brother tell his friend Jim that that kid got killed last night because he came near here." He looked straight at Seth. 'They were daring each other to see what killed Billy Naughton. They were daring each other they could get near here without anybody finding out." Again that smile flickered across his face. "My brother, Jonathan, will let me into his club if I find out before he or his friends do."

  Bobby stood silent again.

  Seth didn't know what to do. Was the kid loony? Was everybody in Campbell Wood like this? Now he knew he wanted to go back to where they used to live. He had never seen anything like this before. Everyone had been told to stay away from them?

  He was about to tell Bobby to go home, to turn away from him at least and leave him standing alone, when a shout came from down the street. Seth turned toward the large green house and saw another boy, older than the one before him, running toward them.

  "Bobby!" the boy shouted. He sounded desperate, almost hysterical.

  He stopped about twenty feet from them. When Seth lined up where he was standing he saw that this other kid was standing just outside their property.

  Bobby smiled, turning to his brother.

  "Will you let me in the club?" he said.

  "We'll let you in the club," Jonathan said. "What's the matter with you, you crazy? Didn't Mom tell you to stay away from here?"

  Seth felt as if he weren't even here, the way they were talking to each other.

  Bobby smiled and pointed at the house.

  "If I stay here I'll be able to see what happened to Billy Naughton."

  Jonathan suddenly made a decision and marched over to Bobby, beginning to drag him off. Bobby resisted, thinking that it was a game for a moment, and then fighting back for real. "Let me see!" he shouted. His brother pinned his arms behind him, pulling him away. There was a flushed, rabbit-in-a-headlight look in his eyes and he kept looking at the Campbell house in quick glances.

  Seth took a step toward the struggling pair. Jonathan shouted, "No!"

  Seth stopped.

  "It's your family that's doing this," Jonathan said, pulling Bobby over that invisible line and now letting him half go, holding him tightly by one arm. "Your sister."

  He turned, his fast walk doubling into a trot, his little brother held tightly.

  Seth watched them go, standing in the middle of the sidewalk. What did they mean, it was Kaymie? What did that mean? They were weird, he decided. It didn't mean anything. They were all weird around here.

  He suddenly felt very alone. He wanted to be back in the Bronx, in his old room, w
arm under the covers, hiding Augie so Kaymie wouldn't see him.

  He looked down the street, where the green house looked gaunt and silent now.

  He didn't like this place.

  5

  For Ellen, the morning rose bright and cold. This would be one of those two or three days that come to autumn every year, when each gold or red leaf is sharply outlined against the ground, each partially denuded tree etched against the deepest of blue skies. The air was snapping and clean; you could see farther than on other days. This kind of day gave warning of coming winter, but gracefully neglected to predict all the dull gray wetness the real winter would bring.

  She was roused by the smell of bacon curling up to the top-floor bedroom. She descended the stairs, her nightgown clutched tightly around her against the chill, her eyes still drowsy with sleep, and was startled to find breakfast for all of them neatly laid out and Mark, dressed in corduroys and flannel shirt, moving around the kitchen like a whisk broom.

  "I don't believe any of this," she said, stifling a yawn.

  "What's the big surprise? New house, new ways."

  "Don't give me that. You're the laziest son of a bitch I know."

  Mark shrugged and turned back to the French toast. "Kaymie coming down?"

  "I think so." This time she couldn't stifle the yawn. She pulled out a kitchen chair with a scrape and slouched down into it. "I hope you don't stay like this," she said as he bustled around her. "I don't think I could stand it."

  "I have a lot of energy today. I want to drive out to the university library and see how good it is. And I should finish those two articles by the end of the week anyway."

  Seth abruptly flew through the back door, banging the screen behind him. He sat down at the table, breathless. "That kid was weird," he announced.

  "What kid?" said Ellen, lifting her head.

  Mark said, "Some guy Seth's age showed up about an hour ago. He was standing on the front lawn, staring at the place." He turned to Seth. "Did he want to play?"