The House

by Bentley Little

  God, he wished he could watch a morning show or listen to Howard Stern or ... something.

  "What's happening outside this House?" Stormy said.

  "In the real world? That's what I'd like to know. Why can't we have a TV or a radio in this fucking place?"

  He pushed his chair away from the table, stood, and began pacing. "I'm getting tired of this shit."

  "Who isn't?" Norton said.

  "Can't we at least have a newspaper delivered with our breakfast?"

  "The Ghostly Gazette?" Daniel suggested.

  "Very funny."

  Laurie stood. "We'd better stop here before we really start getting on each other's nerves. Let's clear the table.

  I'll wash the dishes."

  "I'll dry," Daniel offered.

  "Where's that leave the rest of us?" Stormy asked.

  Daniel grinned. "Free to do as you choose."

  "Great," he muttered.

  There was nothing they had planned, nothing they had to do. They'd searched the entire House yesterday, and today loomed before them, a huge monolith of time.

  Stormy carried his cup and plate into the kitchen. Last night, he'd begun a sort of journal--notes for a possible movie, actually--with pen and paper he'd found in his room. He had some other ideas he wanted to write down, so rather than plop his ass on a seat in the sitting room and stare at the damn wall, he got himself some ice cubes and a big old glass of water and, excusing himself, went back upstairs.

  Where there was a TV in his room.

  A TV!

  Excitedly, he ran over, flipped it on. Channel 2 was static and snow. The same with channels 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The only channel that came in was 13, and it was showing some type of documentary; but he didn't care.

  Any audiovisual contact with the outside world was like a crust of bread to a starving man at this point, and he was even grateful for the simple physical presence of the television in his room. He'd never realized before how completely and utterly dependent he was on mass communications and he promised himself that if he ever started thinking about chucking it all, moving to a cabin in Montana and living off the land, as he periodically did when business was down and the pressure was up, he'd kick his own ass.

  He sat down on the side of the bed and stared at the screen. He didn't know what he was watching, but it definitely had a documentary feel, a grittyunstaged look that gave it the appearance of reality, a verisimilitude only reinforced by the generic synthesized music that accompanied the montage of pan shots. It was film, not video, a travel show or nature show or Indian show, and it had obviously been shot in New Mexico--he recognized the familiar blue sky and massive clouds as well as the adobe ruins of Bandelier. He'd heard no voiceover since turning on the television, but he knew from the rhythm of the piece that narration would kick in at any second, and he lay down on his side and piled both pillows beneath his head to watch.

  The program did not play out the way he expected, however. There was no narration, and the panoramic vistas and beautifully shot ruins gave way to uninspired and routinelylensed footage of high-desert brush along the side of a flat dirt road. The music disappeared, and the camera panned down to a low, heavily eroded ditch by the side of the road, where a dead body lay twisted against the exposed roots of a paloverde.

  Roberta.

  Stormy sat up at the sight of his wife, all of the air in his body seeming to escape in one violently exhaled breath. She was wearing only torn panties and a dirty bra. Her right arm, bloody, a section of skin torn off and blackened with dried blood, lay twisted behind her back at an impossible angle.

  In her hand was a piece of cheddar cheese with a rose embedded in it.

  The camera panned up her body, and Stormy saw that there was a trail of black dots stretched across her forehead and her wildly staring eyes that looked like burned ants.

  He stood, intending to get Norton and bring him back here, to find out why their lives and experiences were crossing all of a sudden, but he could not leave before the program ended, and he yelled "Norton! Norton!" at the top of his lungs as he stared at the screen and watched a lingering shot of what looked like a rotting full-sized marlin lying in the ditch next to her.

  The House started to shake.

  It was not merely a rumble or single jolt this time but a full-scale quake that rocked the foundations of the House and tilted the floor as though it were the deck of a storm-tossed ship. The television winked off instantly, but the lights in the room remained operational, and he could at least see what was happening as he was knocked off his feet by the force of the temblor and sent flying into the wall beneath where the window used to be.

  Stormy scurried across the floor, half crawling. The door had been thrown open, and he scrambled into the hallway.

  It looked like a low-budget earthquake scene from a bad direct-to-video flick, the camera shaking, blurring, and doubling everything in the scene.

  Except that there was no camera. And the blurring and doubling were not due to some optical trick but to the fact that the walls and floor and ceiling actually seemed to be physically separating, splitting like cells into identical twins of themselves.

  There was a cry from off to his left, and Stormy turned his head to look down the hall. Norton had obviously heeded his call and was at the top of the stairs, holding tightly to the banister to keep from falling onto the landing below.

  Stormy stood, bracing himself in the doorway.

  "What's happening?" he yelled.

  "I think the Houses are separating!"

  Why hadn't he seen that? Around him, that strange mitosis was continuing. He was still recognizably situated in a tangible, material House, but the transparent out lines of other Houses could be seen emerging from it.

  The doorway in which he was standing was quadrupled, and seeing four ghostly doorways surrounded by four ghostly walls receding into the solid reality of his corporeal House was not only disorienting but dizzying. He turned toward Norton again, and the old man looked transparent as well.

  Holy shit. He was going to be left alone here again.

  They were all going to be alone. It was bad enough being trapped in one House together. But trapped in separate Houses . . .

  And without Billings?

  He didn't think he could survive that.

  The adrenaline that had been revving up his heart on account of the shaking kicked into overdrive, and he scrambled desperately toward the staircase at the end of the hall, crying with fear and frustration. He wanted to grab Norton, to hold on to him so they wouldn't be separated, but the old man's figure was fading into the wainscoting.

  "No!" he screamed.

  But the transparent Norton couldn't hear him.

  And then the earthquake was over and the other Houses were gone.

  Daniel Where was he? In what House? In what time period?

  Everything was confused, and Daniel shook his head as if to clear it. He stood alone in what had been the entryway, staring down the hall. The dark corridor was endless. There seemed to be literally hundreds of doors stretching out as far as he could see, with no discernible end. This was not the House he remembered, not any House he had ever seen, and he wondered exactly what had happened. He and Laurie had been in the kitchen, starting the dishes, when the shaking started. Following her lead, he'd stood in the doorway, and then . . .

  What?

  His recollection of what happened next was hazy. He seemed to recall seeing Marie duck under the dining- room table. But then there were two dining-room tables.

  And two dining rooms.

  And then three. Four. Five.

  He'd remained in place, anchored to this House, while Mark and Laurie broke off into different directions and faded away with their respective dwellings.

  Had they been real at all, he wondered, or were they just manifestations of the House? Had he been alone all along, only thinking there were others here with him?

  Was this some sort of head trip the House was playing
with him, some way of getting information from him or testing his reactions?

  He didn't think so. It was possible, but his gut reaction was that the others were real, that what Billings had told them was the truth, and that now that the Houses were back at full power, they had the strength to merge and separate at will.

  So was his House the true House? He was pretty sure it was. He was the one who had remained in place, who had remained here in the House they'd all shared, while Laurie and Mark--and, presumably, Norton and Stormy--had spun off elsewhere.

  Except he hadn't really remained in place, had he?

  Because this House had changed, too. Gone were any pretexts that this was the exact same home he and his father had fled all those years ago. There were similarities, of course, but there were differences as well, and he stared down the endless hallway wondering exactly where he was now, trying to gather the courage to try some of the doors before him, to explore the House alone.

  The sound of whispering from the sitting room behind him and a partial glimpse of a small dark figure a doll --ducking behind the love seat spurred him into action, and he moved forward, started down the hall.

  He was about to try and open the first door on the right, when he saw, a hundred yards or so down the corridor, an unmoving lump in the center of the floor.

  There were no bright fluorescent lights, only dim flame shaped yellow bulbs on silver fixtures spaced far apart on opposite walls, and he took a few steps forward, squinting, trying to make out what it was.

  It looked like a dead body.

  He thought he saw the black-on-white of a formal butler's uniform.

  Daniel ran down the hallway. Even running at full speed, it took him a minute or so to reach the body, and the end of the hallway was still nowhere in sight. Breathing heavily, he stared down at the form on the floor.

  It was Billings. The butler was lyingfaceup , and while there were no visible signs of violence and the white shirt remained unsoiled, the hardwood floor around the body was soaked with drying blood.Billings's eyes were wide open, as was his mouth. There was a small lipstick kiss on his white forehead.

  God is dead, Daniel thought crazily. God is dead.

  Satan lives.

  Where was the girl? Where wasDoneen ? He looked anxiously around, expecting to see her jump out at any moment, to leap from behind one of the doors or come running up from the murk shrouding the far end of the hall. But there was no sign of her, and he dropped to one knee and picked up the butler's cold right hand to feel for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  Had there ever been a pulse? Daniel didn't know.

  Billings claimed to have been here as long as the House had, and all five of them had remembered him from their childhoods and he had not changed one bit. Perhaps he had never been alive. He was certainly not human.

  What could kill him?

  That was something he didn't even want to think about, and with a last look at thepuddled blood on the floor, Daniel stood. He was about to start walking back up the hall when something caught his eye. A dark spot in the blood by Billings' left foot.

  Daniel bent down, looked closely.

  Hair and lint.

  In the shape of a small footprint.

  From somewhere in the House came an echo of high laughter.

  He had to get out of here. Whether that meant finding a legitimate exit or exorcisingDoneen or taking apart this fucking House board by board, he had to escape.

  He had to extricate himself from this situation and get his butt back to Margot and Tony.

  There had to be an answer or a clue or a hint or something behind one of these doors, and he walked over to the closest one, grabbed the handle, and yanked it open.

  A mirror stared back at him, reflecting his own anguished face.

  He strode down to the next door, pulled it open.

  A linen closet. ''

  The next: a library/.

  He crossed the hall, pulled open a door on the opposite side.

  And therewa & his mother's Victorian bedroom.

  She was lying in bed, next to his father, and they were both alive, both young, younger than he was right now.

  His father whispered something, and his mother laughed.

  He had not heard her laugh since he was in grammar school, and the sound brought back an entire world to him. Chills passed through his body, chills not of fear but of pure raw emotion: love, longing, recognition, remembrance, discovery.

  "Hey, Daniel." His father waved him over. "Come in.

  Shut the door."

  His mother smiled at him, and he smiled back.

  He wanted to go in, wanted to jump on the bed the way he had as a child and snuggle between the two of them, but he was acutely aware of the fact that he was an adult, older than they were, and that they were probably naked under the heavy blankets.

  Besides, what was this? A time tunnel? A vision? A

  joke? His gut told him that these were his real parents and they were calling to him, but his mind could not quite buy it. He thought it was probably a trick of the House. They weren't seriously altered, the way Laurie and Stormy said their mothers had been in the House on the Other Side, and they didn't have the insubstantial forms of ghosts. They looked exactly the way they had thirty years ago, and that made Daniel suspicious.

  His mother held out her arms. "Danny."

  He closed the door on them.

  He had the sense that he was doing something wrong, that he should be in there, talking to them, that taking this tack would not lead him where he wanted to go, but he had nothing he really wanted to say to his parents--if those figures were his parents--and he ignored that section of his mind and the nagging doubt lapsed into silence.

  He moved on to the next door. Behind it was a small anteroom and yet another door. He walked in, opened the second door and was home, in Pennsylvania, in Tyler, in his kitchen. Tony was sitting at the dinner table doing his homework and Margot was stirring a pot on the stove.

  He could smell the delicious aroma of beef stew, could feel the warmth from the stove. Outside it was raining, and the windows were fogged with condensation.

  There was no doubt here, no suspicion in his mind.

  This seemed completely real to him, on all levels, and he tried to rush over to Margot and hug her, but was stopped by what felt like a Plexiglas wall. He moved toward Tony, was stopped again.

  He began pounding on the invisible barrier. "Margot!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. He started jumping up and down, waving his arms wildly. "Margot!

  Tony!"

  They couldn't see him or hear him.

  Maybe he was a ghost.

  Maybe they were the ghosts.

  The thought sent a chill through his heart.

  No. Most likely, the House had not transported him back home but was simply allowing him to see, to smell, to hear, to experience what was happening there.

  But why?

  He folded his arms, stood in place, watched, listened.

  Tony looked up from his homework. "When's Dad coming back?" he asked.

  He saw the look of worried concern that crossed Margot's face, and his heart ached for her. "I

  don't know,"

  she said.

  "He didn't . . . leave us, did he?"

  Margot turned around. "What made you think that?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know."

  "Of course not. I told you, your father's visiting his old house in Maine for a few days."

  "How come he didn't take us?"

  "Because I have to work and you have school."

  "How come he doesn't call?"

  "I don't know," Margot admitted.

  "Maybe something happened to him."

  "Don't even joke about something like that."

  "I'm not joking."

  Margot turned down the heat on the stove, her mouth tightening. "Put your books away," she told him. "And wash up. It's time to eat."

  Tony folded his homework, put i
t in his history text book, picked up his pen and pencil, and carried everything back to his room. He returned a moment later, helped his mother set the table, poured himself a glass of milk, and the two of them sat down to eat.

  Daniel walked around the table, periodically reaching out and trying to touch either his wife or his son, but the barrier was always there. Margot and Tony ate dinner in silence, the only noise the occasional clink of silverware against plate and the quiet sounds of chewing and swallowing.

  The unspoken emotion between them was heartrending.

  Tired, frustrated, Daniel sat down on the floor of the kitchen. He felt almost like crying, and it was only the fact that he had to keep his wits about him and remain sharp, ready for anything, that kept him from doing so.

  Immediately after finishing his meal, Tony excused himself and went out to the living room to watch TV.

  Margot sighed, stared down into her nearly empty bowl, pushed a piece of carrot around with her spoon.

  Daniel concentrated hard. "Margot," he said, thought.

  No response.

  He kept trying as she cleared the table, washed the dishes, but there was no contact and he only ended up with a headache.

  He walked out with her to the living room, and together he, his wife, and his son watched an old Humphrey Bogart movie.

  Almost like a real family.

  This time he did cry. He couldn't help it. Maybe that's what the House wanted, maybe he was falling right into the trap that had been set for him, but he didn't give a shit. He sat on the floor, next to the couch, and let the tears flow.

  After the movie, both Margot and Tony went to bed.

  It was early for Margot, past Tony's bedtime, but these obviously weren't ordinary circumstances, and Daniel walked with them, standing next to Margot as she watched Tony brush his teeth and then kissed him good night.

  He followed her into the bedroom, watched her take off her clothes and then climb into bed, forgoing her usual shower. She pulled the covers up to her neck, clasped her hands.

  Prayed.