"Speak to us, show us a sign, Anne!" Maude pleads.
And the thing in another part of the house that has stirred and awakened has made its way to the top of the stairs, and has started down.
In the semidarkness below, a man gathered with the others in a circle for the seance looks toward the stairs, and his head cocks a little because he thinks he’s heard something. After a moment, he looks away. A shiver goes through him.
"I have seen you here, Anne!" Maude declares.
"I’m sorry," says a young man—youngest in this group made of mostly of thirty-to-forty-year-olds. His name is Dorian. "But I really have to use the bathroom. Do you mind?"
Maude gives him an oblique, subtly offended look. Then she says, "Upstairs. Second door on the right."
Dorian stands, smiles quiveringly. He is very embarrassed. "It’s okay," he says, and sweeps his hand to include the circle remaining, "go ahead without me."
"We can wait," Maude says.
"I won’t be long, then," says Dorian, and starts for the stairs.
~ * ~
When the deputy stood beside the open driver’s window of the Buick that was parked down the dead-end path off Sylvan Beach Road, he smelled lilacs.
Lilacs? he wondered.
There were no lilac bushes here. Only cattails moving fitfully in what had, in the past few moments, become a stiff breeze.
Lilacs?
He leaned into the driver’s window.
Lilacs?
He saw that the keys were in the ignition.
Lilacs? he wondered. Lilac perfume, he realized. "Good Lord," he whispered.
~ * ~
The stairs that David descended were metal and they clanged dully with each footfall.
Below, the tall rectangle of light that was the exit to the street grew no larger as he descended, and he wished desperately that he could see the stairs he was on, that he could see his own feet on them, that he could see himself actually descending, actually going down to the first floor.
He wept. He felt trapped here, in this building, in this place.
He said as he wept, "My name is David Case, my name is David Case," and as he said it, as he wept, as he descended the metal stairs—clang, clang, clang—the meaning and importance of the words grew and faded, grew and faded, like a heart pumping, a heart losing air.
~ * ~
Christian Grieg lay beside the body that lay halfway in the doorway of the green cottage. He was on his back. He said, with tight excitement, his unfocused gaze on the top of the doorway above him, "I destroyed a fish that the seagulls wanted, David."
An almost imperceptible groan escaped the body beside him.
"I brought my foot down, sploosh!" Christian said, and his arms tightened with the memory, "onto that fish and it was no more!" He smiled.
He turned his head so he was looking at the closed eyes of the body in the doorway, whose head had turned toward him. "Listen to me, my friend." He rolled toward David, reached, slapped David’s cheek softly. "Listen to me. Open your eyes." He slapped David harder, lifted one of David’s eyelids; the pupil had ascended, he saw only white. "Disgusting," he said.
He rolled to his back again, focused on the top of the doorway above him. "This is very pleasant, isn’t it?" He grinned. "Two pals having a chat."
A car passed by swiftly on Sylvan Beach Road.
The body beside Christian groaned once more. Louder. But not loud enough that anyone farther away than Christian was now could have heard it.
Christian said, still grinning, gaze still on the doorway above him, "That was a purely rhetorical comment, I assume."
He rolled his head to the side so he was looking again at David’s closed eyes. There was movement in them. David’s eyes were moving behind his closed eyelids. Christian lifted one of the lids. He saw David’s light blue iris and dilated black pupil staring back. A quick, "Ah!" of surprise escaped him and he let David’s eyelid go. His grin vanished. Returned.
He said, gaze still on David’s face, "That was a neat trick, my friend. You scared the piss out of me."
He put his hand on David’s chest. He thought that there was movement. He wasn’t sure. It was very subtle. It could have been his own hand trembling with excitement.
He lifted David’s eyelid again. He saw the light blue pupil, the dilated black iris staring back. The iris began to contract as daylight found it.
Christian said, "Are you in there, my friend?" He paused, continued, "Or is this just some randomness of your bioelectronics—I want to know!" The fierceness of his last comment surprised him. Some untapped and unknown reserve of anger? he wondered.
What was the exact breadth and width of his power and anger?
He was intrigued.
Clearly, the smashing of the fish was only a minute part of his capabilities.
Look at the wild creatures. The natural creatures that existed on the earth. Look at their power, their anger!
Anne, the woman with the crown of black hair, the fish—what he had done to them was nothing compared with his true power.
He was still staring into David’s eye. David’s eye was still staring back. Christian said tightly, "You see me here, don’t you? I know that you do." He slapped his open hand onto David’s chest again and stopped breathing a moment.
Yes. There was movement.
He jumped to his feet, leaned over, grabbed David with both hands by the neck, yanked his body up toward him. "Damn you! Damn you!"
He couldn’t suck the air from David anymore. That time had passed.
He had to do something else.
Something more overt.
~ * ~
It was no longer a doorway that David was seeing below, down the black stairway, and his feet no longer clanged on the metal stairs. He was seeing something else.
The metal stairs were gone.
The building was gone.
He was seeing light ahead, below, beyond him. He was seeing an opening.
Movement.
"David Case!" he whispered. "David Case." The words came out and he heard them, but he heard them as if they were at a great distance, and were being shouted to him by someone else.
He had no idea what the words meant.
"Damn you!" he heard.
He saw a face in the opening, in the light. It was a face that was alive with anger, it was surrounded by darkness, and it was shouting. "Damn you!" it shouted, "Damn you!" as he—David—slid toward the opening, as the opening widened and drew him closer, like a mouth taking in food, "Damn you! Damn you!" the face in the opening shouted, "Damn you!" the face shouted, "I brought my foot down sploosh!" the face shouted, "onto that fish and it was no more!"
~ * ~
Christian lifted David’s body, held it in his arms. David’s head fell backwards. His eyes opened halfway.
Christian left the cottage, and headed toward the lake.
~ * ~
David saw blue sky, now. He saw the tips of pine trees. A gull soaring.
EIGHT
“Uhdarcknass," wrote the chunky man in the below-ground-level apartment, "like knowuthar chasez hymn awl over thuh plas—and he looks bahk and ittz ganeingon hymn fasst, he’s knott wonteeng 2b quick enuf oar he wants it to catch hymn, this theeng frum insid hymn. it chaases lika dawg awoolf, a murdereeng theeng and it wonts2 overwelm hymn, eat hymn, mak hymn itself, butt hee is of a bettr mynd and duz not want 2 go 4evr in2 darcknass"
~ * ~
The man fishing from his small outboard motorboat at the center of Oneida Lake was the only person on the lake this windy day, and he was seriously considering going back to land because it looked like a storm was brewing.
He scanned the sky to the north, then to the west and east, then to the south. Solid overcast. God, when had those clouds come in?
Movement on land a quarter mile south caught his eye. He looked. His distance vision was very good but he could not be sure that he was seeing correctly. Was someone being carried toward the lake? C
learly, it was only a prank.
He glanced at the sky again.
Yes, a storm was coming.
He stowed his fishing gear quickly and started the outboard.
Soon, he was headed north, toward home.
After a few moments, he looked back, toward shore.
~ * ~
In the house that once belonged to Anne Case, Dorian fumbles for the light switch so he can go upstairs to the bathroom. He’s feeling a little nervous because he can’t find the light switch—he’s never been to the house before—and though he isn’t usually afraid of the darkness, here, on the stairs above him, it makes him nervous because his friends are still gathered in a circle and are waiting for him so they can continue with their séance.
"Where’s the light switch?" he calls.
"At the top of the stairs," Maude calls back from the opposite end of the big living room.
"At the top of the stairs?" He’s incredulous. Why would anyone put a light switch only at the top of the stairs? "You mean there isn’t one down here?"
"That’s what I mean."
"Oh."
"Do you want us to turn on one of these lights?”
“No," he answers at once. "It’s all right." He starts up the stairs.
He stops after a moment and peers hard into the darkness.
He believes that he sees something above him, on the landing. Something tall and stocky and mannish. Something with a large, oddly shaped head.
And he hears weeping, too, but very distantly, as if from behind the closed door of a huge room.
He looks back, toward Maude and the rest of the group. When he looks back, he sees nothing. But he can still hear weeping.
He goes upstairs.
~ * ~
A dog ran loose on the rocky beach where Christian carried David. The dog was small, white, skittish. Every few moments, she glanced over her shoulder. She was looking for two things—her owners, and other dogs that roamed freely around Sylvan Beach, one of which had already attacked her and had left her bleeding from her right flank.
Christian saw the dog heading his way and stopped walking. He said, "Hello, doggie," but the dog, busy glancing over her shoulder, didn’t notice him at first.
~ * ~
In the opening, in the light surrounded by darkness, David saw the lake, the beach. A white dog.
"Hello, doggie," he heard.
~ * ~
"Hello, doggie!" Christian repeated, angry that the dog hadn’t responded. He—Christian—was a wholly natural and spontaneous creature talking to another wholly natural and spontaneous creature, and he deserved a response.
The dog noticed him at last. She stopped walking abruptly and stared wide-eyed up at him, from ten feet away.
"Well, say something!" Christian insisted. "I can’t stand here all day!" David was getting heavy. The rocks were slippery. The wind was cold.
The dog continued to look at him. She didn’t know where to go. The unspoken message she was getting from this man was a message of anger, and the dog had dealt with much human anger in her life. But the lake was in one direction, and the other dog was behind her somewhere, and the road—cars—in the direction that remained, so the dog was at a real loss as to what to do. So, she did nothing. She froze.
Christian advanced slowly on her. "Don’t just look at me, dog. I’m talking to you. I am a natural creature, just as you are, and I am talking to you. I expect a coherent reply, dammit!"
Still the dog did not move. She sensed that, at any moment, the human would lash out at her. Humans had done that before. Often. She expected it. But still there was the lake in that direction, and the big, dark dog behind her, and the road over there
"You will speak when you’re spoken to!" Christian bellowed, and he kicked out at the dog.
The rocks were slippery.
His foot lost purchase.
~ * ~
“ . . . he’s knott wonteeng 2b quik enuf oar he wants it to catch hymn, this theeng f rum insid hymn. it chaases lika dawg awoolf, a murdereeng theeng and it wonts2 overwelm hymn, eat hymn, mak hymn itself, butt hee is of a bettr mynd and duz not want 2 go 4evr in2 darcknass and so hee runz and runz awl the time—god hee haz 2 oar it will kach up with hymn . . . "
~ * ~
Christian started to go back. His arms flailed desperately. Futilely. He fell.
David fell with him.
Christian hit the rocky beach. First his lower back hit, which did no damage, then his left elbow, at the funny bone, which sent a flurry of pain up his arm; then his upper back, onto flat rocks, then the back of his head. He felt that. He lay for the briefest moment—one beat of a hummingbird’s wings—with his head supported at an awkward angle by a rock and his gaze wide and disbelieving.
Then David fell on top of him, across his chest, facedown.
There was a loud, moist crack as Christian’s neck broke.
The little white dog scurried off, feet scrabbling for a hold on the slippery rocks.
~ * ~
David saw light all around.
He felt wind on his face and back.
He smelled lake air. Fish. He heard the sound of something scurrying off.
What in the hell was he doing out here?
Somebody was beneath him.
"My God!" he whispered.
He tried his arms. They would not begin to lift him.
He tried to see who it was beneath him, tried to turn his head. It was no use. He saw only a hand, palm up, fingers curled slightly, on the rocks near his face. The hand was very close. Out of focus.
~ * ~
It was daylight in the room and nothing moved, except the dust. It covered everything. It moved as if from the force of wind, though there was no wind. It rose and scattered and collected itself, it wafted into the space of the room, settled, and collected.
The dust was dark. Like the earth.
It was made of earth.
~ * ~
"Are you all right?" David heard from a distance. He wanted to look up, to see who was calling. But he couldn’t.
"Are you all right?" the voice repeated.
"No!" David managed, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Help me!" But the wind covered the sound of his voice. Even he did not hear it.
~ * ~
In the room the days came and went like leaves turning over in a wind. Time was not measured well by them; the days measured only the passing of events—snow fell and covered the house to a depth of several inches, then was gone; a breeze passed through the house, pushed the dust about, and when it dissipated, the dust collected itself again.
The dust was sturdy and brown. It sat up a little as it collected itself, then it lay down again.
In the cellar, the things that existed there slithered up the stairs, pushing the darkness ahead of them as they moved, out the doors, over the windowsills.
They found the fields of clover empty.
They went into the cities; they pushed the darkness ahead of them as they moved.
And they found the cities empty.
They went back to their cellar.
They waited.
~ * ~
"Are you all right?" asked the face above David. It was a round face, gentle, old, and caring. The gray eyes were full of sympathy, the weathered cheeks raw and red from the cold wind.
"No," David managed. "I’m hurt."
"Yes," said the face, "I can see that. Let me help you." David felt himself being lifted by strong arms. "I’m afraid your friend is very badly hurt."
"Yes," David said.
"Perhaps worse."
David said nothing.
~ * ~
In the dark room, the dust collected itself, and stood. It looked about, and was frightened.
The dust felt no tug of gravity. It felt a tug from above. This was, at once, strange and comforting.
Eventually, the dust collected itself sufficiently that it scratched at an itch that had always bothered it. Then it stood and, witho
ut real purpose, moved about in the room. At last, it went back to where it had arisen.
It lay down.
It wept.
It laughed.
It remembered.
This is what it remembered:
Beverly looked at Stephen, and she saw a monster, something with a huge, misshapen head and bulbous eyes and a long, greedy tongue. She loved what she saw. This was her Stephen, and she knew that he was seeing her the same way, for the first time, and that he loved what he was seeing, too. Loved every repulsive, slavering, greedy, human part of her.
Two monsters fucking. It was real, it was good, it would last.
The dust smiled as it remembered the words. The words told it much.
The dust could create itself from them.
~ * ~
"If you’ll be all right for a moment—”
“Please, don’t leave," David pleaded.
"I’ve got to see to your friend," the round-faced man explained.
David closed his eyes in assent.
"I won’t be long, I promise. Does your phone work?"
"Phone?"
"I’ve got to call someone to help you."
"Oh. Yes. It works." David was beginning to feel a little stronger. The man had laid him on the couch. He found that he was strong enough to sit up a little, and prop himself up with his arm, though only for a moment. Then he plopped back down again. "The phone’s in the kitchen."
The man nodded. "Let me go get your friend, first."
"Yes," David said. "I’ll be all right."
~ * ~
At the house, the dust settled, formed, dissipated, collected again, rose, went to the doorway, stood there, its huge misshapen head and bulbous eyes—its real self, the self it had always so wanted to be—and mannish body turned toward fields not far off.
In the fields surrounding the house, people were picking fruit that grew on plants which hung close to the ground. This fruit was sweet, pungent, and red, like strawberries, and one of the people gathering the fruit straightened in the white light, held a piece of the fruit between his fingers and smiled. "We could have whipped cream with this," he said.
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